09:23 Aug 01 2011
Times Read: 774
Dedicated to ChasingTheGhost, Sherri, and Bernadette.
I met Sherri when I was 11. We'd just moved in across the street and we sized each other up for a few weeks before any "hellos" were forthcoming. I don't remember who spoke first, but I know she teased me forever about the meeting. I was sitting on my front step playing a mouth harp...yeah, I was never cool.
Sherri liked disco and tight jeans. She knew all the songs on the radio and I was a hopeless teacher's kid who only listened to my parents' music. I wore dresses my mom sewed for me. And worst of all...knee socks that I was forever tugging up. Sherri rode a skateboard and swore like a boy.
We became best friends. She was brave and crazy to my calm and cowardly. I was magnetized by her gutsy charisma and I followed her everywhere. Soon I was riding a skateboard, too. I sang along to Black Sabbath while she taught me how to smoke a cigarette behind her house. We blew the smoke into the ac unit and thought we were so grown. We rolled our shorts up as high as they would go and we sneaked our moms' Mary Kay lipsticks out of the house in our pockets to paint our faces when we turned the corner. My first taste of alcohol was with Sherri, and so were my first real lies...the really real ones that can make your mother cry...and mine did.
She sneaked a joint out in her book bag one morning and we smoked it at the bus stop. I had never seen one before, but I knew what it was. I knew how to say, "no." But I didn't. It was 7th grade and I was so off my face that she yanked me behind the fence and we skipped school that day. We ended up getting suspended and the friendship pretty much cooled down after that. My mom and dad declared war. I was grounded and guarded for forever.
I was sent to a Catholic high school. Sherri went to public school. She didn't get very far because she got pregnant early on and married her sweetheart. She loved her kids...she had a little boy and a little girl later. She was a good person, generous to a fault.
She was also a drug addict. She made a few attempts to clean up. Invariably, after promises were made, she'd start using again. I kept up with her, but when I went off to college in another town, I lost touch with her. Her sweetheart tried to stick it out with her, but eventually, he took the kids and they divorced.
Mom called. Sherri had been killed in a drug deal shortly after a pretty successful run at being clean. It was a violent death. She was shot while driving, presumably away. The car crashed and she was no more.
I went to her funeral. It was surreal and wrong. She was so young...24 if I remember correctly. Her ex-husband was there, crying quietly against a wall. Her sadly unbalanced mother was standing over the coffin, mumbling about Sherri being an angel and didn't she LOOK like an angel. She had her dressed in a white nightgown. Never seen that before. I'll never forget that everyone seemed to be touching her, including her children. I felt disconnected and out of time with the rest of the room.
I would go on to dream about her for years, of walking up to her door where she needed my help, but I couldn't help her and I'd frantically try to reach her. I woke up crying for a long time.
I felt guilty that I lost touch with her, that maybe I could have helped somehow, maybe have been the difference that mattered. What kind of friend fades away? She had so many reasons for going in unhealthy directions. I was so blessed by comparison.
I wrote to her. I closed my eyes and imagined her responses. I thanked her. I am as much who I am today because of Sherri as for any other influence in my life. I learned real stuff from her. Some of it was fun and exciting and some of it was scary and dangerous. Life is about working those things out and choosing a path for yourself.
I skipped the part where I was mad at her. Oh, I was...for a very long time. She left two kids and a good man shipwrecked. She left me. She was supposed to "grow out of" that "phase" and we'd have years to look back and laugh at the dumb things we did while we reminisced.
I keep the letter, her obituary, and the prosecution clippings of the man who shot her, They're in a small drawer in my old bureau. The newspaper clippings went yellow a long time ago, but I imagine those papers will be in the top drawer of any bureau I ever have.
I still miss my crazy friend. I loved her and I still do. There was a noble spirit in her, and there was a downright stubborn stupidity, too. No illusions about that, but she was real. She was my best friend. She could climb a tree better than any boy. She was afraid of no dare, and she would give you the shirt off her back as freely as she'd cuss out someone who dared to sit on the back row of the bus...in her seat or the one next to it...mine, because I was Sherri's friend.
COMMENTS
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PAGAN
17:56 Aug 26 2011
Great entry.
My regrets are the things that I know (with hindsight) that I should have done differently, but like you, these experiences made what I am, so only little regrets. Life is great.
Oceanne
18:02 Aug 26 2011
You are a great inspiration to many of us here Joli and I know I have learned much from you.
However,when someone says they dont have regretsit might not be as "boastful" as you think...maybe it issimply because they believe that something bigger has forgiven past mistakes and that those mistakes are veiwed as lessons not to be repeated. Also,that some might believe that no matter what we are given in life,no matter what,it is nothing to regret.
Oceanne
18:06 Aug 26 2011
In other words,if you hurt someone,dont go through life regretting it.Make it right somehow and know that you did your best to rectify it and make damn sure it doesnt happen again.
Joli
19:10 Aug 26 2011
I absolutely agree that we must learn from our mistakes. We should try to make things right where we can. I advocate putting a foot forward again, never being crippled by mistakes and wrong choices. I also believe that regret is healthy. I WANT to feel it when I misstep. I want to remember it when it is appropriate. I want it to be as much of a feature in my self-portrait as the color of my eyes.
I never want to gloss over it and say, "because I did "y" today, the "x" I did yesterday is nothing to regret. For me, it always must remain. again, not to cripple me and martyr me somehow. I don't want to live in the pain of constant self-recrimination...but I want my scars to stay scars -. and not from the new thinking of "scars are hot and sexy", but from the old school of "I am flawed."I hope that makes sense.
To admit to being flawed...to having regrets...is not the same thing as being weighed down with guilt or low self-esteem. It is the eye-opening moment of self-discovery and potential wisdom. It is honest.
BLOODLIFE
19:15 Aug 26 2011
You are simply an equal, an equal that's really out there in front ;-)
Oceanne
19:42 Aug 26 2011
What yoyu say makes good sense,and I agree with you in that we should never, ever forget our transgressions.One thing I should say is that when I speak in terms of regret,I mean lifelong regrets and feelings of guilt.