I've been waiting a long while to say this.
All the entries here are lovely and eloquent, and mine isn't going to be either of those things because I'm typing it out late at night and tired, but a couple thoughts have been eating at me for such a long time that I'm finally just going to put them up here anyway. I've been considering it since last night, and today at the dollar store I found a Barenaked Ladies CD. What the heck, I thought, they're a real band, they shouldn't be here at the dollar store. But Jules loved these guys didn't she? Even though I know none of these songs I shall get it and think of her. Tonight I put it on, and the first song is called 'Adrift' and is about saying goodbye. Last freaking straw. Listening to it now, how can I not type this out?
Jules and I knew each other over the net for a long while, but we didn't talk all that often. For me she was one of those people you love and want to be better friends with but never quite know what to say until the right kind of topics line up by chance now and then, and those nights you have an awesome time. Once we watched the first LOTR movie together over the internet, doing our best to keep our screens in synch, but I don't own the second movie on extended cut so we put that on hold until I could buy it. I never did.
A little while before that April I saw in Jules' LJ that she'd had a rough time with a friend. One day as I was sitting around the house with nothing in particular to do it struck me that sometimes Jules liked to tell me about her problems, would always thank me for listening afterwards and tell me that she felt better. Maybe, I thought, I should go online and ask her how she was doing. Just to let her know I cared enough to notice that she was going through something and to see if she needed someone to talk to. So I went and turned on my computer. (For those of you that don't know me well, this is a major feat. Once it's on I love it, but if it's off you practically have to use a cattle prod on me to convince me to turn it on.) I logged onto aim. Bing, there was her name. And... I just hovered my mouse over it and frowned. Nah, I thought, Jules has lots of closer friends than me to talk to. Probably she's having a nice day and if I pop in and bring up her troubles, I'll just be reminding her of them. I didn't want to take the chance of ruining whatever good mood she might have been in. And I didn't feel particularly eloquent then, either. So I hung around on the net for a while, did nothing in particular, waited to see if maybe she would say hi to me first and then I could offer comfort without just barging in on her. She didn't, though, and I got bored. So I logged off. And that was the last time I ever got to see her screen name on my buddy list.
What would we have said? What neat new things will I never learn now, what funny jokes and quotes will we never get to laugh at? What if she wanted a friend right then and I could have eased some burden she was carrying? When was the last time I /did/ talk to her? I don't even know.
I don't want to be one of those 'regret people'. One of those people who says things like 'Tell your family and friends that you love them now! You don't know what will happen and you might not have another chance!' To be entirely honest I usually just feel annoyed by those kinds of sayings. We hear them too much, and they lose their meaning, their flavor. I didn't want to be one of those people.
I miss you girl.