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Saturday, Oct 11, 2008
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What I mean to say is.... |
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| The last five minutes | ||
| by Beau Burriola -
SGN Foreign Correspondent (This column is being reprinted in honor of his birthday, with hope through the years that things changed for the better in the end.) Five minutes left... I was starting to get nervous. The champagne was chilled and smiling faces were all around me. The restaurant was packed and I looked around for you. You'd be here... I just knew it. Many friends had gathered for me, I have so much to be thankful for. Still, I couldn't help but look around for you. Four minutes to go... Nervousness turned into contemplation. I looked at the candle on the table and tuned out of the chatter around me. Do you remember when we used to sit and have long rambling conversations about the universe? I used to admire the way you looked at the world with the eyes of a dreamer, with so much vitality and hope. I remember thinking that nothing in the world could change the fact that you'd always been a huge part of my life, my closest friend. Three minutes... Then one day life got complicated for you when crystal meth started coming around more and more often. Slowly I've watched you change into someone I don't recognize. For two years now you've drifted into this deeper and darker place. The life in your eyes has gradually drained away, you rarely smile anymore and you always seem so angry. Now you do things that maybe you don't realize cause hurt more and more often. Sometimes it seems like you've lost the ability to care about anything else, but I'm always there because I know it isn't you. I know you... underneath it all you are such a different person. People don't believe me because they don't know you like I know you. I know you'll be here. Two minutes... The waiter began to pour champagne around the table while I began thinking about what I'm going to say for the toast... here, just now... with two minutes left. When I couldn't think of what to say, I looked around for you again, and then back at the candle. Every day that goes by I find myself feeling more and more hopeless. How can I provide enough hope for both of us when I still have to decide what I want to be in my own life? I've got my own future to worry about. Every time you struggle, every couple of days you disappear, every time I call and call and call just to say that I believe in you and all I hear is ringing, I begin to wonder why I bother. One minute... When my cell phone rang just as we began to lift our glasses, my heart both rose and fell into my stomach. I knew ... I didn't have to look, I knew it was you because you weren't there. I managed to say 'hello,'hoping maybe you'd gotten lost, but for the next thirty seconds, with a blank look on my face, I just nodded at your ridiculous and transparent lie. In two long years of this battle I only ever asked one thing of you. You've known for a long time that this would be a big night for me... the celebration of a huge milestone in my life. I didn't want gifts, I didn't want crowds and I didn't want a fuss. All I wanted, instead of any stupid material thing in the world, was just for you to be there last night to celebrate with me and the closest people in my life. Five minutes and a champagne toast was all I asked in two years of busting my ass to try to help you in every way I can. Thirty seconds... In a few defeated and angry breaths, my decision became final. The last five minutes of our longtime friendship taught me a very difficult lesson. When being a Gay man means sometimes seeing your social circle being eaten by meth again and again, you learn that sometimes just being there is enough to help people through. The corollary lesson, the harder lesson that these final five minutes has taught me, is that sometimes I can't help and I've just got to let go. 5...4...3...2...1... ... gone Beau Burrriola is now a 28 year-old writer, looking back with amazment at some of the things we lived through. beaubrent@gmail.com |
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visit Beau at www.beaubrent.com
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| Film Festival Pictures | |
| Halloween on Capitol Hill
Slide Show photos by Joey - SGN photographer |
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