Guilt from the past.

The Professor called me shortly before I left work yesterday. It was good to hear from him. He sounded a little lost, and confessed he’d been thinking about seeing if he couldn’t trade his airline ticket in for a sooner return flight. I don’t think he’s going to follow through. If he does, then picking him up at the airport may become complicated.

I spent a fair amount of time last night downloading pictures from my new digital camera to my computer. I took more shots than I realized. Organizing them is going to be challenging. Tonight I hope to start resizing, cropping, and annotating them.

The Ex reports via e-mail that he has more mail for me, including a package from C, a friend that I’ve been out of touch with for years and who does not know of my divorce. This raises all kinds of guilt issues with me. It’s rather a long story.

I decided in my late twenties that I wanted to learn to read music. I have no particular musical talent, but I figured that shouldn’t stop me from learning the basics. I signed up for a Recorder for Adults class at a local community college, and it was there that I met C & E. C worked for the County on access for the disabled building codes. E suffered from severe bouts of depression, was morbidly obese, and held down various jobs during the time I was actively friendly with the pair. Never diagnosed, I strongly suspect she is bipolar. She would go through obsessive periods where something would capture her interest and she would throw herself into it as if nothing else existed. Vampire lore was one obsession, exotic animals was another, and sign language still another. The three of us took sign language classes together, and C and E would often have complete conversations in public using the signing they’d learned. E became adept during this time at convincing people she was deaf, sometimes eventually ‘fessing up that she could hear, and other times drawing the charade out to the bitter end.

E could become suicidal, withdrawn and rude, and then stay that way for weeks or months before pulling out of it. She was also one of the best pun creators I’ve ever met, well read, and very articulate when she was in one of her “saner” periods. She was utterly dependent on C, and would go into a tailspin every time E dated somebody or did something independent from E. During most of the ten-plus years I was friends with them, C did not date anyone. C, in fact, was a classic “enabler”, and sacrificed much of her life for friendship’s sake.

We had many interests in common though, and I initially enjoyed spending time with them. It got to the point where I couldn’t take E’s mood swings anymore. I unintentionally brought on her last obsessive period by purchasing her a pack of Native American Tarot Cards for Christmas. They were intended to be a curiosity and art item (she and C were very much into the arts, and these cards were beautiful). She took them far more seriously than I ever thought she would, though, and began believing the tarots she was casting with them. She began having dreams, one about taking on the wolf as her totem animal, and others about an aged Indian shaman who gave her spiritual and practical guidance. Soon she began seeing him during her waking hours as well. E dyed her hair black, and started to adopt Native American customs and “dress”. C didn’t seem to think there was anything particularly strange about this, and at times even seemed to encourage this behavior. I figured it was time for me to extract myself from the equation.

It was convenient that all this began happening at about the same time as I was accepted to veterinary school. I became “too busy” to spend much time with them. Strictly speaking, this was not a lie, and I lost touch with many other people during this period because of the demands of school. I have to admit that I was relieved to have this reason to put some distance between myself and C and E. I didn’t cut them off, but time between phone conversations became more and more protracted, until we simply weren’t in touch with each other any more. They did get in touch with me once in ’97, shortly after I got out of the hospital, but that was the last I heard of them.

And now, this package from C out of the blue. Part of me worries. Did E finally make a serious and successful suicide attempt? Or is it something far more innocuous: did they finally locate those books I loaned them years ago that they forgot they had and then claimed I’d never loaned them? Did they hear I was trying to get back into volunteering at the zoo (when I was doing my zoo thing I helped get them volunteer positions in the Children’s Zoo, which, to my uncertain knowledge, they are still doing). I simply don’t know what to expect. And, to be honest, I don’t know if I want to get involved again.

I’m meeting up with the Ex Friday night for dinner and a movie. He’ll be bringing the mail to me then. I’ll find out what this is all about then. Meanwhile, I’ll stew. And feel guilty.