This afternoon, with some trepidation, I checked my texts, DMs and a couple of email inboxes, looking for unanswered (and often unopened) messages that have accumulated over the past few days. It’s become a familiar pattern recently: I don’t really want to talk much with family or friends. Nor do I want to grocery shop or do the sort of paperwork I normally enjoy, revelations that would make anyone who knows me well gasp. This year, for the first time ever, I waited until the last minute to file our taxes; normally it’s done as soon as the 1099-DIVs straggle in.
The last time I retreated like this was at the start of 2014, when I would’ve left civilization behind to live in a remote cave had it been a viable option. Though I eventually threw myself into work, sometimes arriving at the office three hours before it opened and leaving a couple after it closed, and collected side gigs to fill evenings and weekends, I told Best Friend — who lived many hundreds of miles away, meaning we needed technology to stay connected — that I was going off-grid for a bit and wasn’t sure when I’d be back.*
He understood, being a depressive and reclusive sort himself, and seemed relieved when I reappeared six months later. That soon gave way to surprise, for upon my return I began volunteering information I’d been stingy with before, sharing previously untold stories about my childhood, my parents’ upbringings and Papa’s colorful history. And I confirmed his suspicions that my ex had tried to expel him from my life, not that he was singled out: she had nurtured an even stronger animus toward Almost-Girlfriend, demanded I ditch another platonic pal of the lesbian persuasion, and was even agitated at times that I refused to sever ties with my family.
Those conversations brought us closer together than ever before, a closeness that has continued with relatively few hiccups over the past decade, no matter what life (or brain chemistry) throws at us. Lately I’ve felt a profound sense of guilt as I again drift away from him, which I should tell him directly rather than writing it here but I’m not sure how to explain what’s wrong and don’t want him to feel like he has to fix it.** Is it the dreaded Parkinson’s apathy that I’ve been warned about? I’m worried it is, and that’s why I’m not eager to discuss it with anyone who cares about me.
Or maybe it’s not that at all and I’m just unhappy with the realization, almost a year post-diagnosis, that nothing’s likely to improve as much as I’d hoped it would. Either way, Best Friend would probably get emotional about it in the same way my parents or siblings would, as he has in previous PD-adjacent exchanges. And maybe in some small way he’d view me differently, which I’d very much like to avoid. Whatever’s causing this problem, conspicuous silence isn’t the answer. This week I resolve to improve my effort, even if it means recycling Cheers plots or Nigerian prince scams to entertain him.
* It wasn’t just that I didn’t want time to think, or to spend a second longer than necessary in the house my former partner had so histrionically and traumatically left. I also wanted to rebuild the savings I’d spent on things like her seemingly spur-of-the-moment plane ticket (in retrospect, I doubt it was all that spur-of-the-moment) and temporary lodgings. And on packing up her belongings, and many of ‘our’ belongings I didn’t want her to be without, and sending them to her at my own expense. After taking delivery of those boxes she wrote that she’d been so deeply touched by the care I’d shown her possessions that it was almost (but not quite) enough to make her reconsider leaving. The only two people I’ve ever shared that with responded the same way: “What an idiot.” They were referring to her, but I’d argue I was dumber.
** His relentless urge to fix things is his most masculine quality, followed by his NBA fanaticism. Aside from that, he’s an oddly maternal figure for a straight guy.