Paradise by the dawn's early light?

Dearest D.,

I headed out to Leesburg on Friday afternoon/evening to have dinner with the fam to celebrate Mother’s Day. Both my step-father and brother-in-law were scheduled to work on Mother’s Day, so we had to find another day to celebrate. It ended up that Friday worked the best for everyone and we met at Lightfoot Restaurant at 6:30 for dinner.

After we finished dinner and I was getting ready to head back home, I wasn’t sure what route I wished to take and mused aloud about it with my brother-in-law. I mentioned that I hadn’t been down Route 7 in quite a while and thought I might head that way to see what’s changed. He chuckled and said, “You should. You won’t recognize it now.”

So I did.

As I pulled out of Leesburg, I said a quick prayer of petition to Neptune that I might make all the lights green and opened up the hoopty pickup for the cruise between Route 15 and Ashburn Flats. As I bounced along the highway, my thoughts began to drift and invariably they drifted concurrently to you and a friend of mine who moved to Loudoun County a few years back. The funny thing with that is in addition to sharing the same first name and middle initial the two of you share the same self-superior, holier-than-thou attitude. Little wonder my thoughts drifted to the both of you at the same time as I was taking both a literal and figurative trip down memory lane.

I told you about DB shortly after we made our acquaintance. He was the friend of 15 years with whom I’d had a huge blowout just prior to you and I meeting.  In one of my earlier emails to you in which I mentioned that I found you attractive and interesting, I also mentioned I was a bit raw and unsure about moving forward in seeking new friends/relationships as a result. While the specifics surrounding the dissolution of my friendship with DB were different than what happened with you and me, the experience was eerily similar.

In the fall of 2007, while DB was living over in Vaseline Valley, he was approached by a lezbo friend of his to move in with her in a house she was renovating in Great Falls. Given DB had always fancied himself a bit of a gay country squire he jumped at the opportunity to move in with said lezbo and acquire the panache of a Great Falls address. However, he didn’t have the good sense, or presence of mind, to draw up any kind of legal document to protect himself before making this decision—should anything happen.

Long story short, after terminating the lease on his apartment and moving all his worldly possessions into the country estate during the wind down of the renovation and essentially functioning as a house sitter until she was ready to move in; the lezbo “friend” kicked him out after his being in the house for three months as she prepared to move her stuff into the house (along with the new girlfriend) and take back the plantation.  Of course through many a drama-filled telephone conversation, I heard endless story after endless story of how evil the lezbo ex-friend and how she used, abused, and victimized him.

Due to the fact that DB worked for himself essentially as a charlady, had jacked-up credit, and was on the IRS’ 10 most wanted list due to unpaid back taxes he was unable to find another apartment to rent. However, two days before the evil lezbo ex-friend was to dump his belongings on the front yard he found a room to rent in a townhouse in an area of Loudoun County once called Sugarland Run, back in the day, but rebooted as Cascades.

In true DB fashion, he managed to create his own version of The Surreal Life by running off the suspected Al-Queda-operative-roommate in the basement so as to take over his space. As well as forming a bromance crush on the heavily-tatted, pot-smoking, electrician, straight boy living upstairs while attempting to engineer sexual situations/activity with him at each opportunity and moment. Then found a southern belle by way of gay flight attendant from Atlanta to move in and take over the bedroom DB occupied when first moving into the “guy house” as DB called it.

As time went by, with each conversation DB seemed to get evermore self-superior. He would tell me how fabulous it was to be living in Loudoun County and how much he loved living in “the country” (in reality, he lived in a townhouse in a planned, bedroom community).  And how much he disliked Arlington, the area in which we live, as it felt like such a “negative” place when he drove through.

How amazing it was to be fifty-something and working part-time at Crate and Barrel as he “searched for a new direction” in his life. During one such telephone conversation, he told me about drinking one too many glasses of wine at a party and passing out on a couch in a moment of orgy-interruptus with a bunch of other guys. The extra glass or two of wine due to the fact there was a “smoking hot guy” in the group and DB felt he needed a little liquid courage to assist him in his desired conquest.

When I mentioned his family history with alcohol and wondered if it was wise for him to be drinking in such a manner. He became extremely belligerent and accused me of judging him—blah, blah, blah. In that moment, I reached my limit and let him have it. I began to give back to him all of the self-superior attitude he’d given me through the 15 years we’d known each other.  And like you, rather than show even a modicum of self-awareness and apologize, he instead attempted to blame me. I ended up getting so angry I terminated the conversation by hanging up on him (one of the two times I’ve done so in my 40-some years).

Shortly thereafter, we met for dinner to discuss what happened. Again, he rationalized his behavior and made an attempt to continue to blame me for what happened. I again went off. I told him I was no longer going to listen to his crap and take the blame for everything. And if he wasn’t able to acknowledge and apologize for his part in what happened, then I saw little need to continue our friendship.  As he got up to leave the table, I asked him for the keys to my apartment I’d given him.

He looked at me with a hurt look on his face and said, “So I guess this is really it, huh?”

“Looks that way to me,” I replied.

He fished the keys from his pocket, dropped them in my palm and wondered off into the crowd of the mall where we’d had dinner and I’ve not heard from him since.

As I was hurling through space down Route 7 in the hoopty pickup on Friday evening and passed by the Kohl’s (and its several acre parking lot) that sits between the townhouse development of DB’s last known domicile and the highway, I thought to myself. So this is paradise?

An endless ribbon of asphalt peppered with bedroom communities and strip malls with millions of pounds of CO2 spewed into the atmosphere each year from traveling to and fro in an endless and pointless search to find middle class salvation through conspicuous consumption. It appeared to me to hardly be the bucolic nirvana in which DB claimed to be finding himself living a couple years back.

As with you, I have to wonder how he’s doing these days. But again, like you he refuses to speak to me—pity.

As always, sending you much love!