*Takes long drink of water*
*Looks down for a minute, then back up*
You know, it doesn't get any easier. You keep telling yourself that, as time goes on, maybe that feeling will go away, and everything can go back to the way it was before. You just wanna believe that things can be normal again, and you won't have to get up every morning with that awful, crushing empty feeling inside. But every time I think about it, it's like I'm right back there, and it still hurts just as much
*sighs*
So, it'd already been a couple years since I'd seen teh. This was already after they'd been carted off to the meme rest home, with the Mudkipz and the Pedobears and everything else people cared about in 2006, but that now just reminisce about the glory days and complain about their jobs getting stolen by undocumented Dat Bois. Me and teh were always close, but, once they went there, I never really took the time to visit them (mostly because I can't stand 4chan). I never really consciously thought about, but in the back of my mind, I was always justifying it to myself. "Teh's fine," I thought, "they don't need me around, they've got all their old friends around and all the cheeseburgers they can haz! I don't need to go dredging up the past all over the place!" It was easy to think like that, and I probably could've kept doing it for a lot longer, if it had'n't been for that one last time.
It was the summer of 2014. My platonic friend Allison and I were going to go see The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I was just sitting in my apartment, minding my own business, when Allison sends me this text:
"Coming up teh stairs now! Hope you're ready for me, big boy ;)"
Instantly, the memories came flooding back. The trolling. The shitposting. The memes, oh, the dankest of memes. There was a time when me and teh were partners. It was a glorious time; and for a second, seeing them there in that text, standing in defiance of any sane spellcheck, brought the full, sweeping majesty of that time back to me. But then, I got Allison's 2nd text:
"*the"
I've never lost a limb, but as soon as I saw that text, I knew what it would feel like. I dropped my phone, and it shattered into a million pieces (because this was 2014, and iphone cases were for crapouts) but I didn't care. When Allison showed up, it was pretty clear she knew something was wrong; she didn't even mention the movie, and just tried to get me to have some of the champagne and oysters she brought over, or have me give my opinion on her new lingerie; I think she thought it would cheer me up, but I knew I had to try to be strong. I insisted we go to the movies, even while Allison was practically begging me to help her fix something in my bedroom (everything in there was working fine anyway, so I don't know what she was on about). I ended up going to the movies by myself, hoping that maybe I could find some solace in Andrew Garfield's masterful portrayal of Spider-Man. Alas, no amount of Spider-Man amazingness could get what I had just seen out of my head. By the time the film reached it's classic finale, and the rest of the packed theater was cryng their eyes out over Gwen Stacy's death (*SPOILER ALERT*), I realized I had been crying throughout the entire movie. But the Green Goblin didn't kill the one I was crying for. I did.
There was so much I could've done for teh. All the job applications I left them off, all the thesis papers they could've been on, the personal communication with friends I family I never involved them in, teh could've been a part of all of that. If I'd just made the effort, I could've made the misspelling. But no. Apparently, I only spell things "correctly" now, no matter who I hurt in the process. I never really realized how damaging I'd been up until that point, and how quick I'd been to abandon my old friend just because of what everyone else thinks. I always go back to the moment it happened. It was all so fast, and I just watched it happen. I could've done something. I could've pushed back. I could've fought for teh's integrity. Hell, I could've even just ignored that second text and acted like nothing happened. And you know what, maybe if I dd that, I'd feel a little bit better about myself, but I know it wouldn't have helped anything. That's still the last time I saw teh, and I know it always will be.
*sigh*
You're never the same after you see a meme die.
Post edited July 29, 2016 by DrOblivious