Yesterday, I wrote about Kathleen, my oldest friend and one of my two best friends. Today, I’m going to write about my second-oldest friend and other best friend, Ian. We met on Twitter in 2012 during the elections. We both were night owls so we would chat in the wee hours of the night. I will admit that I thought he was cute, plus he was witty and smart as hell, so I was drawn to him.
We were both in a very dark place. Both suffering through breakups, though his relationship was much more long-lasting than mine, and we commiserated over that. I had a bunch of sleeping issues and used Twitter as a way of self-soothing. It wasn’t a good way, mind, as political Twitter was a hot mess, but it was the best I could do at the time.
I remember it was Halloween when we started DM’ing each other because we both had planned on going to a Halloween party with our respective others and were crushed it wasn’t going to happen. He encouraged me to go to the party, anyway, and have fun–and I did the same for him.
From that, sprung up our friendship. In the first four or years, neither of us was in a good place. For me, I was in the depth of my depression and anxiety. I thought life wasn’t worth living, and I was barely treading water. Ian was having a hard time, too, so our friendship was forged in fire.
Over the next four or five years, we both grew in leaps and bounds. I got serious about Taiji, which helped me with my mental health issues. It gave me the ability to walk in crowds without freaking out, to put up boundaries with my parents (not great ones, but anything was better than the nothing I had in place before), and it grounded me when I felt as if I were all over the place.
With Ian, he cut way back on his drinking, started his career as a games journalist, and mellowed out as well. He’s even more of a leftie than I am, which is saying a lot, and we’ve had many robust discussions about politics. He was also here for the 2016 elections because he was interning at Game Informer and stayed at my house for three months. We were both devastated by the news and sent reeling.
He’s spent time here during several summers, helping out around the house. It was beneficial to both of us as he got some extra money and I didn’t have to do as much work. Painting walls, putting in cobblestone for the foyer, gardening, etc.
When we first became friends, I had two black cats, Raven and Shadow. They were brothers. Raven was gregarious and friendly; Shadow was timid and reserved. When Ian came to visit me for the first time, Shadow ran up to him and rubbed his head against Ian’s shins. Ian greeted him, “Hello, Raven” because I had told him that Raven would immediately love up on him whereas it would take Shadow longer to warm up to him. I told him that was Shadow with astonishment lacing my words because Shadow did NOT do strangers. My ex-SIL thought I only had one cat because she never saw Shadow.
Shadow instantly fell in love with Ian and allowed Ian to pet him all he wanted. Raven, ironically, was a bit more reticent, but eventually gave in to his friendly nature.
Ian has a cat named Thistle. She is gray and looks like a Russian Blue. She’s thick and solid, and she is probably the most catlike cat I know. She doesn’t like any human food and will only eat kibbles. One time, Ian and I were eating pizza and Ian tried to give her a plate of tuna. I glanced over after ten minutes or so and to my amusement, there was the pizza box plus a few magazine covering the tuna. I asked Ian if he had done it, and he glanced over at the plat. He sighed and said, “No, she did it. She doesn’t like human food.” I cracked up that she had been so offended by the smell, she had to ‘bury’ it.
She does not like people, but has mellowed out as she’s gotten older. The last time I saw her, she slept on the bed with me, albeit at the foot of the bed. Five years ago, she would have disappeared when I showed up, so we’re making progress. She also managed to turn the screen of my laptop upside down more than once.
Ian and I message every morning, and that’s actually how my brother found out I was in the hospital. The day after I had my medical crisis, Ian got worried when he didn’t hear from me. He messaged me a few times, and by 6 p.m. (my time), he was freaked out. He messaged my brother, and that’s how my condition became known–after my brother came to look in on me and couldn’t find me.
Ian was also here when the worst event of my life happened–when Raven suddenly died. This was early December of 2016 and Raven and Shadow were sleeping on Ian’s bed together. They were bosom buddies when they were little and then grew apart a bit as they got older. They were still friendly, but they didn’t cuddle as much. The fact that they were napping together on the day Raven died is meaningful to me. Raven came out to curl up on the couch by my head (his usual spot) and that’s where he died. Ian gave him kitty CPR as I Googled how to get to the emergency vet, and he was the one to direct me to the emergency vet as I was in tears and my heart was breaking.
When the emergency vet told me that Raven was dead and returned his body to me, Ian and I sat in the parking lot, and the snow began to fell. Weirdly, that made me feel better–as if Raven had sent the snow explicitly to me.
The next day, Ian dug a hole in my garden as I sobbed and said my goodbyes to Raven. He was also the one to fill the hole back up–and again, I don’t think I could have done it on my own. And I definitely could not have dealt with the grief of it without him supporting me.
When I started this post, I initially wrote that we had met in 2008 because it’s unfathomable to me that we have only been friends a decade. We have seen each other through hell and come out on the other side. I’ve literally died (twice) and come back better than ever. I have told him that having him in my life is one of the biggest blessings.
Our friendship now is much different than it was when we first met–and it’s stronger, richer, and better than ever. We can talk about everything from politics to video games (and to be fair, we talk a lot about the latter, especially FromSoft games), and everything in between. I am thankful every day that I met him and that I can call him friend. I used to call us balls-to-the-wall friends and while I’m no longer enamored of the phrase, the sentiment still remains.