Friends

I owe people an apology.

I owe a LOT of people apologies.

More importantly, and I suppose somewhat selfishly, I owe myself an apology.

But it's long overdue on multiple levels, so here goes.

I'm sorry I gave up, took off and went into hiding.

Yes, you. Me. All of us.

I could give a long, methodically plodding explanation for why it happened, but I can honestly do it in one simple sentence.

In my heart and in my mind, I didn't deserve any of you and thought you all were far, far better off without me.

Seriously. It's that simple. I could drop the cliche of "It's not you, it's me," but in this instance it's actually accurate.

I felt I had nothing to offer to your lives. No positive reenforcement, no moral support, no experience, no wisdom, no humor, no anything, because for the longest time I couldn't see it in myself. And I was so afraid to engage any of you in anything that resembled actual interactions that whenever the opportunity presented itself, I made for the first available exit and didn't look back.

I thought what support you gave me was just window dressing, and I thought I couldn't learn anything from what you had to teach. I figured I was too old and too damaged to figure it out or follow your lead.

I was wrong, and I have no problem at all admitting it.

It's like winding a mainspring on a watch. The tighter it's wound, the longer it will run, but also the better the chance it will snap under the pressure and the whole long piece of metal flies apart.

It took a while, far longer than it probably should've, but the mainspring that powered all the self-loathing and self-destruction through my whole life finally broke. That's the best I can explain it, but it was that sudden.

What I needed to both understand and accept is that my fascination with the amazing things you all do (even if you don't realize they are), are in-and-of themselves a learning experience for me that I need to take advantage of.

I don't know everything and I never thought I did, even with two college degrees and a library full of books stowed away in this noggin' of mine. But I thought I had a pretty good grip on how the world worked and more importantly, how people worked.

Turned out, I learned from the wrong people. So I'm switching sides. I'm going with you guys instead, because at least I know you're going in directions I want to go, and they sure as hell aren't where I've been.

Thanks for still being here when I got back.