oh love, don’t let me go

I’m usually not a confronter, or a lecturer.  If someone done something that I believe is wrong, its usually my opinion that it is up to them to find that out, and correct it for the next time, should they want to. I have never believed it was my place to try to correct someone of what I think is an error, or convince them of my ideology - explain myself and my views, perhaps, but never force them onto an innocent bystander who has a right to their opinion, just as I have a right to mine.

This, of course, has it’s exceptions.

In my sophmore year of college, I had met a kid who we’ll call Avis.  He was a tall boy, dark skinned, with short black hair that never really shined.  It was never dirty, it just lacked the luster of a freshly printed photo from the store.  He always kept a short beard on his face, letting it grow almost wildly, never trimming it.  Avis wore glasses, but they blended in well, with his face.

I was good friends with him for quite awhile, maybe a semester, before I realized he had been lying to a whole slew of people about his past and just exactly who he was.  In usual cases, this wouldn’t define a person, and I would be willing to pass over it, and move onto the next day.  It’s not like there weren’t good memories - there were, and they were plentiful.  I’ll never forget the time he shaved and we saw what he looked liked without a beard, or the time we saw his room for the first time, and were surprised how clean it was, despite the reek of rum laced in the air.  Yet, there was more to the story, more than I care to disuss here.

The fact was, he had hurt me, and a few of our friends, by concealing himself in the cocoon of his lies - and what had emerged was no butterfly, but rather a moth.   I went over and talked to him, and it was rather eloquently uncivilized.   We had a good rapport, and it led to our conversations being worded rather complicatedly.  It’s always odd to yell well-formed sentences.

I was thinking about one phrase on the drive home today that he said, that had always stuck with me.  I don’t know how we had gotten to the point of discussing his merits as the human being, but we did because he was always a little dramatic.

He said to me, “I’m a good person.”  I asked him how he knew.  He replied and said, “I harbor no ill will toward anyone.”

At the time, it didn’t stick out, but in the days, months, and I suppose, years after, it is what I remember most about him.  It also, and more importantly, led to me realizing he was wrong about what he said - harboring no ill will toards anyone just means you’re not a bad person.  However, not being a bad person, doesen’t mean you are a good one either.

That said, Avis is a good person - he just didn’t have the right reason to prove he was.