Contemplations

Okay, this is really annoying. I'm writing some stuff for NaNoWriMo (actually, I'm at a write-in at the It's a Grind off East Bidwell) and it's making me contemplate myself and things I've done.

For example:

In the current scene, the main male character (MMC for future reference) is hoping that the Captain of the Guard (CotG) will believe his claims of innocence to a crime that has recently happened, and not just assume he's guilty because his lifelong friend admitted to committing the crime. So right now, the MMC is sitting in a room, waiting for CotG to come and talk to him and hopefully give him some money. And of course, as I'm writing this, the first thing that pops into my head is none other than a scene from yesterday (from my life, not the story). As I mentioned in my last post, yesterday we were allowed to have partners for the multiple choice section of the APUSH exam.

All my friends paired up with other people for the exam, but what hurt the most was that the guy who sits in front of me - someone I consider to be my best friend, someone I look up to and respect, someone I...well, someone who is very important to me, perhaps more important to me than my other friends - but what hurt the most was that he chose to work with someone else, leaving me to work alone. I'll admit, I could have had a partner, one of the others who didn't have anyone to work with, but when I get hurt I get stubborn - it's one of my flaws. So I was stubborn and insisted I was fine on my own, all the while trying not to cry and act like a broken-hearted fool.

And afterwards, he tried to tell me that he had wanted to work with me - that he had been turning around to ask if I wanted to work with him when another friend jumped in and said they should work together - but I didn't listen. I was hurt, and when I'm hurt I tend not to really think about what I was doing; I told him I understood why he had worked with the other friend, that I understood his grade was more important to him than me, that I understood. And all that time, I was crying inside, because it hurt - but that is no excuse for what I did. Rather than listening to him and giving him the benefit of the doubt, I ignored him and assumed that, because it looked like he had wanted to work with the other friend, he did not want to work with me. And, as I sit here writing this scene - in which one of my own characters is having their innocence decided based on the whims of another - I fully realize how selfish my actions were.

While things have settled down - in fact, today we acted as if nothing had happened - I know that doesn't make it okay for me to just ignore what happened. If I could, I would go back in time, tell him that I believed him and it was okay - but I can't. What's done is done, and I can't change the past. Before now, I never really realized how permanent actions and words are - how scarring they can be, even when they're meant in jest. I never stopped to think how much my words might hurt others, how they might scar a friendship permanently, how they might ruin the life of another, even though I've experienced all those things firsthand. I guess I just never stopped to think about it. But now, when it really matters - when I've hurt and insulted my closest friend, and perhaps ruined the only chance we had - now, I can't do anything to fix it.





Oh, and there's a musician here who was playing guitar earlier, but now is playing a little recorder-like thing, and his music sounds just like something from the Shire.

My life is becoming a fantasy story - oh the horror. Oh the fear. Oh the awesomeness. Oh the I don't know what I'm saying.