Goo Goo Dolls - "Name"

Theresa was a bitch, but she was a bitch who was my friend. So it was hard to believe when she changed so much our senior year of high school.

But at the core of my memory, I can't forget the shy and funny three-year-old I met at McDonald's with our moms. We bonded over a love of Princess Lovely Locks and the secret of what really happened to her electric toy dog. (We fed it plastic cherries from that cherry picking game until we were convinced it wasn't hungry anymore.) Even today, Pac Man, Ring Pops, and old country roads remind me of the friend who could actually hold her own against the storm that was me. The only friend I coud stand to hurt, because I knew she'd hurt me back.

Twisted, right? But we had an agreement we reached freshman year... If one of us hurt the other, the injured party had the right to hurt right back. It wasn't exactly normal, and probably unhealthy as well, but it was the only way we could survive ourselves as teenagers as opposed to preschoolers.

And even though the moment's passed me by
I still can't turn away.

There were a lot of rough patches in Tree's life, lots of rough patches that I understood better than most. So when she came to me this close to tears from rage and disappointment, she knew that she'd get quiet sympathy and understanding, and another human to vent her spleen against and not be pushed back so hard as our other friends were wont to do. Those were the days when we worked best together.
Those days are gone now. There were several days when what had pushed Tree into a rage had no bearing on what she was ranting about, and quite a few days when Tree pushed hard enough to cut open wounds on the people she ranted to. And really, you can only push me so far before I'll push back harder. The easiest way to get my back up is to be cruel to my friends in front of me. I will rip you apart faster than you can blink.

And letters that you never meant to send
Get lost and thrown away

My mother, knowing in that way that mothers do that I was better at writing my feelings than saying them, would always warn me to be careful what I wrote. If I wanted to express myself, then words said in anger could be more easily taken back than words written on paper. So there are about ten journal entries where I raged at Tree, and contemplated ending our friendship. And by the time I'd gotten that from mind to hand to pen to paper, and the ink dried, I was usually over the brunt of my anger, and it went back to manageable levels before I had to go and talk to her at school.

And now we're grown up orphans
That never knew their names
We don't belong to no one
That's a shame
But if you could hide beside me
Maybe for a while
And I won't tell no one your name
And I won't tell 'em your name

Tree and I also have mental illness in common; I've seen the shirts and slogans time and again in stores and on t-shirts: "I fear I have an undiagnosed mental illness."
Well, Tree and I don't fear the undiagnosed; we've got the diagnosed illnesses. We each have different flavors of "crazy", but I understand her mood swings better than most people standing out in the storm of her emotions--I stand in the eye of another storm. Depression set in early with both of us; cut off from any support system in the vicious world of small parochial elementary school, we didn't stand a chance. It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the essentially shy girls would be meat to the vultures populating those schools in the guise of humans. Mania came later, but in Tree especially it was pretty pronounced. Even her "good" days weren't good days--they were just days when the mania took her over, used her, and spit her out.

So I tended to jump down people's throats when they whined about Tree's mood swings. "Yeah, it sucks, but cut her some slack," I told them. "She's supposed to be your friend. Just let it go."

And even though the moment passed me by
I still can't turn away
'Cause all the dreams you never thought you'd lose
Got tossed along the way

Did you lose yourself somewhere out there?
Did you get to be a star?

She's dropped out of college now; she had such big dreams, and was so excited to be going to Cumberland... but now she's back in a town she hated, with a family she doesn't particularly care for most of the time--though that might be the illness speaking more than what she actually feels. So I don't have as much in common with her as I used to; I love college--it's like my natural habitat. In grade and high school I was always too damn smart for my own good, and a person can only be told how much their friends hate them for their good grades so often before they crack. Here, I've adjusted, and have a support base broader than a few friends and the Speech Team.

This song has basically been my favorite song since the sixth or seventh grade.

And if I cry a little sometimes when I hear it, well... that's pretty much between me, my computer, and this blog.

And even though the moment passed me by
I still can't turn away
'Cause all the dreams you never thought you'd lose
Got tossed along the way
And letters that you never meant to send
Get lost or thrown away

And now we're grown up orphans
That never knew their names
We don't belong to no one
That's a shame
But if you could hide beside me
Maybe for a while
And I won't tell no one your name
And I won't tell 'em your name

Scars are souvenirs you never lose
The past is never far
Did you lose yourself somewhere out there?
Did you get to be a star?
And don't it make you sad to know that life
Is more than who we are?

You grew up way too fast
And now there's nothing to believe
And reruns all become our history
A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio
And I won't tell no one your name
And I won't tell .em your name

I think about you all the time
But I don't need the same
It's lonely where you are come back down
And I won't tell 'em your name