try me.

The subject of friends and caring's not one I'm going to spend too much time gushing on, I promise. But one of the comments from shamroq has me thinking, and combined with something else I ran across, I have some things I need to say.

Don't assume that I can completely turn my back on you. I can't. And the moment when it seems that you're least welcome in my life, is the moment that I probably most need and want a way out of the mess I'm creating for myself by pushing you away.

Don't assume that just because I haven't come to you and said as much, that I don't probe the space in my life you used to fill. Don't assume I don't still wonder just because I don't say I do, and don't assume that what I make obvious is all there is.

Don't assume that anyone else is ever a substitute for someone who's absent. Everyone I bring into my life occupies a unique space in it, and you will be missed, but I'll probably never say that you are.

Don't think that my anger never cools or that I would let old anger make me mistreat you without a new offense.

Don't think that the door isn't still open unless you've tried it. There are very few people in my life I've ever been able to count as gone, and while for my own protection I may not press a suit for anything more warm than just a mutual disregard, that still doesn't mean that I'd reject a request.

I had someone specific in mind. If you have to ask, though, then try me. Life's too short to spend in regrets, and what was once, might be again, or it might be stronger for new understanding. I tend to make friends with stubborn, proud people; the kind among whom small misunderstandings and little hurts pack a huge wallop. They're also the kind, though, whose friendship means most because the rockiness makes the peace sweeter. If you mattered before, and I haven't said you no longer do, then you do. And probably, if I have said you no longer matter, you still do. Like I said... try me.

This was as close to an it's all right and can we start over as I can come today. If I'm talking to you, whether you're The Person I Meant or not, and you want to make it right, send me a blank email, see what happens. I might surprise you.