Faster. More Danger.

I met Mike in 2010, in Indonesia. He rolled up on my sister and I talking, and I thought to myself that I’d never seen such a beautiful person in my life. He was the first South African I’d ever met, and he was a talented surfer and I liked the idea of him instantly although it wasn’t until many hours later that I found I liked who he was every bit as much as I liked how he looked and sounded.

Over the years, the distance and the fact that all we ever had in common was each other began to change things. We both met other people and had relationships that far exceeded the one we had with each other- both in terms of length and depth. We stayed in touch, though, and would tell each other that there was a very special place- perhaps small- perhaps tucked far away- but a place inside each of us only for the other.

Even when you love someone, outwardly and without preamble, it really means little else. It doesn’t mean that you spend that much time with them, or that you are wrapped in their life with any special title. It sometimes doesn’t even mean that you completely understand that person. Maybe you sometimes feel that you don’t even understand them at all. But you know they are irreplaceable to you, and that no matter how many other people come into your life, who are possibly more akin to yourself or who make you happier, that that person was some sort of fork in the road- some place that you can point to and say that there was a before and an after.

I never entirely knew where I stood in Mike’s life. Sometimes I felt that I was nothing at all to him- that he had a whole, wraparound 360 life there in South Africa, and that I was simply a remnant from a happy memory that he liked to relive every once in a while. Other times I felt that I touched his life in some way equal to the way he touched mine, and that he valued me in a way that was incalculable and impossible to place amongst all the more easily categorized things he had going on.

April 20th would’ve been Mike’s 40th birthday. For those that knew him, he was a larger than life character- someone that was impossible to define. I suppose it makes sense that he’s gone. Can you imagine Bruce Lee slowly descending into decrepitude, or Michael Jackson becoming old and irrelevant? I often thought to myself that he was simply too big, too remarkable to ever be weathered away like the rest of us, and when I read other people’s thoughts about it now, the words make me angry. What do those words mean: “Rest in Peace”, “My condolences”? Those are words for other people. Ordinary people. People who didn’t matter as much.

Being this far away from it all, I’m of course out of the loop. It was only through a series of incidents and machinations that I even got to find out at all. And, of course, given the unusual nature of our connection, how could it have happened otherwise?

When you’re the last one in- the last to board the bus, you have the unique experience of still scrambling to find your seat, even as everyone else has already settled in. When you’re the last one on, you were the one that didn’t have time to use the toilet beforehand or grab snacks. You were the one who was caught out. I suppose what’s most frustrating about all of this is that you’re completely alone as the world around you sways and contorts, and that everyone else has already found their place as you look around frantically, with nothing to hold onto but your immeasurable grief.

If people had asked who I am, I suppose all could say was that I was a friend. In some way I think an onlooker would find it a bit grotesque, for me to feel the loss so hard- as someone who didn’t even have a defined place in his life. What right do I have to feel such a giant hole inside, when my daily life won’t have changed even one bit?

I once watched the movie Adaptation with Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. I didn’t think it was particularly good, and I was confused by the plotline. There was a moment in the film where Nicolas Cage’s character tells Nicolas Cage’s OTHER character something along the lines of, “You are what you love in this life- not what loves you.” It was told in a way that suggested it was supposed to be quoteworthy- something that the movie wanted to be remembered for. I didn’t get it. I think I even thought it was a bit stupid. Maybe even embarrassing- to advocate loving something unabashedly that maybe scorns you back. I even thought, “Have some self respect, Nicolas Cage!”

If you had known Mike, you would know that he was good at nearly everything. He was an expert surfer, an accomplished hangglider and climber. He could start a fire in the woods with nothing and hang a picture to perfection. He kept an orderly house. He was a fantastic cook and knew loads about any kind of sciency thing you could think of. He even dressed well, which is really saying something, as he always did it in a hurry. I asked him once if there was anything he thought he was bad at. He answered immediately, “People.”

After someone passes away there is a tendency to idolize them, and I don’t want to do that. Mike wasn’t a saint by any stretch of the imagination. Everything all told, he could be a real asshole sometimes. He was bad with money. Forward planning with him was a nightmare. He stood me up for a Skype date we had planned days in advance, way overpacked for everything, and once lectured me for a long time about Babybel cheeses, even though he initially said any cheese I chose would be fine.

That said, I never thought he was “bad with people” in the way he thought he was. A person like him is unique in the world. You have to be, in some sense, and I think he had a hard time relating to the mundane. But to me, he always hit just the right note: He made up Dr Seuss rhymes for my birthday and patiently listened to me talk about my crazy nonsensical dreams. He chased a wayward bunny around his neighborhood because I was going through a phase where I’d go on for many hours about the virtues of bunny ownership. Once he caught it, he called me so I could give it a name. Although I never knew exactly where I was in his life, he never allowed me to think it was anywhere unimportant.

I’ve spent the last couple days looking back at everything we’d sent each other over the years, partly to see his smiling face again, or hear his voice, speaking to me from some clip frozen years ago. I was looking for something- any sign- any place where he reached out to me and I didn’t reach back. Often, in situations such as these, people will say, “There was no sign!” “How could I have known?”

But when I see it all there in front of me in its entirety, I see it all. All the times he asked to talk and I was on my way elsewhere. The times he told me he loved me and I just kept prattling on about whatever non-important thing. It was there, looking through the stark entirety of our friendship that I realized the years were full of them, and that I had missed them all. I can’t remember now if I ever told him I loved him, even once.

In modern society, and the dating game in particular, you’re always told to never show your hand. Mike and I weren’t dating anymore: I think we had long ago concluded that the two of us together, yes, made for some lovely moments, but also made for endless fighting and an instance of me getting horribly insulted by a bald girl in a children’s museum. We became friends. But the dynamic never changed. I think, when I looked at his full life, with all his pretty girlfriends, loving family, and interesting pursuits, that I felt that the only way I could always keep my place was by ensuring that he felt my absence.

In general, I call it the “Battle of Who Could Care Less”, after the Ben Folds Five song: Making sure that you’re always less invested than the other person. Saving face. Keeping one foot out the door and never taking off your parachute, because you’d rather be considered cold than crazy. You never wanted to be the one who gave too much- who’d have to look back and feel embarrassed. Mike was always intensely protective of his freedom, and I felt that letting him know how much he meant to me would make him feel tied down- suffocated by my regard- and that showing my want to be closer would just end up pushing him away.

I wrote him last year for his birthday. He didn’t answer. At first it felt normal- we were never the type to write back instantaneously- but as the months wore on, I kept thinking about it, and wondering when I’d hear back. That said, I refused to write again- stubbornly feeling that it was “his turn” now, and that giving more than “my 50%” was unfair. I imagined that his girlfriend probably didn’t like him writing with some unknown spectre on another continent and that I needed to back off and not overstep.

The fact that I had nearly five months to do something- anything- to open my heart to him in some way fills me with an indescribable remorse that can only be likened to what I imagine it must be like to drown, or maybe be buried alive. Every meal I eat, every shower taken, every night slept- every thing that pushes the dot of my existence further down the axis of life, and further away from where his dot stopped feels like a betrayal.

When I talk to other people about it now, I’ll admit that it doesn’t make me feel better. The ideas people have, and the conclusions they’ve come to when they have never been there themselves strike me as absurd and mildly offensive. Although I’ve been the one to ask these folks to share their thoughts, more often than not, what they end up saying I can rarely accept. I find myself sitting there, after starting the discussion myself, boiling over with dislike for this person, and feeling nothing but overwhelming hatred clouding my senses until I can find a suitable enough moment to excuse myself and go take, yet another, shower.

Only one person, a Ukrainian refugee, had said anything at all to me that has made sense, and frankly, at this moment, it’s all I am willing to accept. That I need to let him go. That he knew what he was doing. That my tears don’t help him at all. There was a lot else, but I am going to keep it for myself, because to be contradicted right now would not be something I could handle, and I know I would lash out and hurt as many people as I could in retaliation.

I suppose it would only be characteristic of him to move on. To be bored here and be ready for the next step. The possibility of nothingness, the solitude of the journey- these things would not have scared him in the slightest.

Characteristic of him, he’s left something behind for me, too. He left me the knowledge that whenever I have to take that step, I don’t need to worry. After all, moving to a new city is much less scary if you already know someone. I know when I get there, that he’ll already be waiting for me, exactly on time, with a massive smile on his face, and maybe a small reproach about my lateness. His knee will be popping with impatience as I sort myself out, ready to grab whatever baggage I might’ve arrived with, take my hand, and lead me on to whatever adventures he’s got planned for us. My only task now is to get on the best I can until that time comes.

Goodbye, handsome. I love you very much.