Friends, Elephants, Witches & Me

White Elephant:

1. a possession unwanted by the owner but difficult to dispose of

2. a possession entailing great expense out of proportion to its usefulness or value to the owner

I’ve never really felt as though the term White Elephant quite fit me. I have my problems, everyone does. I’ve never had a wide network of friends, but for the most part, I’ve had a group of people that’s wanted me around. I think really, throughout the majority of my life, I’ve very rarely felt unwanted. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy; I’m kind of a nervous kid. Making friends is hard, for me, at least. Whenever I have to deal with new people, I don’t really know how. Because that’s not something that’s explained to you, is it? People tell you how to treat your friends, how to keep them, but they always seem to leave out how to make them. Luckily for me, though, I’ve made it through the years. I’ve made friends. Like I’ve always thought, like I’ve always hoped, I wasn’t a white elephant. So, imagine my surprise, when suddenly, I was.

Let’s take a step back from the white elephant thing for a minute. Actually, let’s just drop the white part, and talk about a different elephant analogy: Addressing the elephant in the room. When someone says, “Let’s address the elephant in the room,” they’re really saying, “Let’s talk about that thing that no one wants to talk about.” Do you know what it feels like to be in a situation like that? Like, really in a situation like that, when no one at all will even attempt to address it? It’s a big elephant. Rough gray skin, beady black not-quite-creepy-but-not-so-cute eyes, big floppy ears, a trunk like you’ve never seen. Massive, earthshaking feet, a huge mass of muscle and fat, completely covered in mud and dirt. It’s an elephant, alright. But it’s as if you’re the only one who sees it, somehow. As if no one’s noticed it, not even looked it’s way. Have you ever experienced that before? Because let me tell you, I sure have. Walking down the center city streets with a few of my friends, something’s not quite right, just off, in some way. No one seems to see it, except me. We’re walking, they’re all laughing, having a good time; I’m watching the cars go back, one by one, they go zoom, zoom, zoom. The cool air of mid March, pale sunlight peaking through the paler clouds, a jungle of hard pavement, faded bricks, peeling paint, rusting steel. Something’s wrong. What’s wrong? How’s it wrong, why’s it wrong? What is this elephant, walking along side us, that no one else seems to see, and that I can’t seem to decypher? Huh. A small, quiet pop of realization. That elephant? It’s the white elephant. It’s me.

I remember how I felt when I realized the truth. I remember how I felt when I figured out what was going on. I remember how it sucked. How I hated it. How I was angry, how I was sad, how disappointed I felt. My friends didn’t all hate me. I could tell, but I knew that some of them did, and the others were keeping it from me. Even still, I couldn’t help but hate it all when I was going through this. I suppose, looking back on it with hindsight (they say it’s 20/20, you know,) I really had no clue what was actually going on. I didn’t know half of it. In fact, only one of my friends hated me, and the others weren’t telling me for good reason. But I didn’t see that. I didn’t know that, I couldn’t have. I was looking at it like it just on the surface level. Part of me felt like it was my fault. Like I screwed it up. But as time went on, as it became clearer to me who it was who hated me, I started to feel more and more angry. I felt betrayed, I felt like what happened to me wasn’t fair. I felt like it wasn’t my fault, like I had been wronged.

I suppose something else I felt was a total sense of lucidity. I felt like what happened was black and white. I lost my friends, whom I had loved, because they no longer wanted me. Not very complicated, from my point of view. To create an analogy, it felt as though some witch had come along and cursed me. They gave me something wonderful— Something supernatural, maybe— and then they had lumbered on back and seized it from me. Took it back away, like it was never mine. Some evil witch had laid a terrible hex upon me, and took away one what I believed to be the greatest thing to happen to me. Then again, there’s something else that, prior to this, I’d never thought about.

Baba Yaga:

1. A famous witch from Slavic folklore, often appearing as a deformed or ferocious looking old woman, usually seen flying around on a mortar, wielding a pestle, and dwelling deep in the forest. Baba Yaga appears as a donor or villain, helping or hindering those who encounter her or seek her out.

The “Baba” in Baba Yaga roughly translates to old woman or grandmother in Russian. An old woman, riding a wooden receptacle used to contain ingredients, carrying a tool used to crush up said ingredients, living deep in European forests. Quite an interesting take on witches, I would say. Personally, though, my favorite part is the whole donor and villain thing. She helps or hinders those who encounter her. Helps, or hinders. You know, the two things that are complete, polar opposites. “When you run into Baba Yaga, you better watch out— She’s gonna do something to you! It could be good or it could be bad, but you know it’s gonna be something!” So basically, the Baba Yaga is like… everyone else. Sure, you could say she’s not like everyone else, because it says she will help or hinder, and not everyone else will always do something to you, but that’s a thin argument. I think given the ambiguity of those words, you could say almost anything, including nothing, is helping or hindering. But back to the point: I had felt like a witch had cursed me. I lost a good thing, and that had to have been a bad thing. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe a witch didn’t come along and curse me. Maybe it was the Baba Yaga.

I only lost one friend. Everyone else, I’m still good friends with, and even if we’re not close, there’s still no bad blood. The friend I did lose, wasn’t a very good person. I didn’t realize at the time, but he was manipulative. He was mean, he was selfish, and he lacked basic empathy. When he first started hating me, I caught on pretty quickly. I texted one of my other friends when I left Center City that day. Asked what was up, if there was an issue. He told me not to worry about it. Something was happening, but it would pass. I understood that, so I let it be. At least that’s what I thought, but as it turns out, I thought wrong.

It was close to Spring Break when it all started, and it was closer to Spring Break when it all ended. For me, at least. The last day before break, actually. I was talking to my friend on Skype, just hanging out. He was the one who got the messages, not me. The man of the hour sends him some messages, explaining his personal hatred for me. I don’t know if he knew the two of us were talking at the time. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. He sends him this drawn out rant about all the issues he has with me, how he can’t deal with me anymore because they’re just so bad. It’s all a joke, really. His reasons are one step away from what you would call, “utter bullshit.” Really petty things, like having repetitive humor. I think really what it boiled down to, though, was he just didn’t feel like I was a very important person to keep around. Really great way to treat people. But hey, at least I wasn’t in the dark anymore, right?

I confronted him myself, eventually. Not in person, break had already started, but I messaged him to see if I could just get anything out of him. He responded a few hours later. Pretty much told me everything I already knew, with a few small additions here and there. I have to say, looking back on it, I handled it surprisingly well. I didn’t freak out, or lash out, or break down. I just sort of backed out. Really, I think what I was the most upset about was the fact that I didn’t get to hang out with people I liked. For the next few weeks, I didn’t do a whole lot. I talked with a couple people, but for the most part, I kept to myself. It wasn’t until a month or so afterwards that I started to get back into the real world, outside of my little puddle of depression. I think I’m fairly lucky I escaped that. It could have gone a lot worse, if I hadn’t.

Friend:

1. noun; a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

2. noun; a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter

I’m going to get a little sappy for a moment. I think it’s okay, though, because this is pretty important. I like having friends. People who support you, people you support, people you spend your time with, people you’re close with. People who you share things, feelings, experiences with. I don’t mean to sound cliché, but having friends is pretty important to being happy. The most fun I’ve had in my life has been in the company of friends. Losing friends sucked, but I also saw things in a new light. Being happy isn’t a state of mind, it’s a choice you make. You have to want it, you have to fight for it. The problem with me, and I imagine with some of the other people that suffer from the pain of depression, is that I didn’t want it enough. I couldn’t perceive how I could possibly be happy like this. There were still people who cared about me, there were still people I could call my friends. But I was so caught up in my own emotion that I couldn’t see that. The ultimate irony, I feel, is that in the end, I didn’t even lose a friend at all.

If friends are two people attached to one another by feelings and affection, two people who support one another, then the person who left my life wasn’t a friend to begin with. They weren’t attached to me, they didn’t care about me. It goes both ways, both parties have to give for both parties to take. That isn’t what I had. It was fake, and now it’s gone, so good riddance.

Eventually I found out what had been happening. He’d been manipulating my other friends, controlling them. Every aspect of him that had ever appeared to be a good person to have around was a facade. Where I thought he was caring, he was really manipulative. Where I thought he was fearless, he was egotistical. Where I thought he was funny, he was really, well, funny, but he was also unempathetic, so I’m sure it wasn’t worth it. When everything was explained to me, I understood. I forgave. It wasn’t their fault, there wasn’t really anything to be forgiving in the first place. But I did it anyway. I remember how it felt to have it explained to me. Part of me was happy that he was gone. Happy to have my friends back. Part of me felt a sense schadenfreude. I’ll admit it. I usually see myself as a person of little vindictiveness, but he got what was coming to him, and that seemed fair to me. Another thing I felt was relief. Relief to have friends again, yes, but also relief that I was wrong. I wasn’t the white elephant, he had been. That helped me sleep at night, a little.

I don’t claim to have the whole world figured out, but I feel confident in saying that you’ll never gonna be happy if you don’t want to be. It can be a hard choice, but it’s always a choice. I had made the choice to not fight back. I guess that’s what I regret the most. But we all make mistakes. You can’t cling onto the past if you want to be happy. You never stop moving forwards. You don’t need to understand albino elephants and Slave witches to do that. You just need your own perseverance, and a will to want. Of course, it helps to make a friend or two.