Today is his birthday.  He would be 33 but he died at 21.  Twelve years have gone by yet still around this time of year more than any other time I get all freaked out about it.  He is with me in my heart every day that I live on this earth but during the moment I realized it was after midnight and now his birthday my entire mood changed.  I do miss him but not for the fact of our love that we shared, it's his friendship that I miss and I am saddened by the life that was stolen from him at such a young age.

How can one small disagreement turn into someone losing their life?  Yet it happens all the time in this world.  I honestly don't understand what the fuck is wrong with human beings sometimes.  Sure, everything happens for a reason and we don't always understand those reasons but really I just hurt so deep in my soul to know that my friend is gone because of someone being such an asshole that they wanted to bring a gun to a basketball game.  Even worse, he didn't actually have the gun at the pickup game they were playing.  He left, walked up the road to his car, got a gun out of the trunk and came back to the place they had been playing and then threatened Billy's best friend with it. 

If you have read my previous posts about this then you know the whole story and maybe I just can't let the past go.  It is hard to "let go" of something like this though.  Basically, I believe that all of the events of our lives link together to build up whom we become and we can use those experiences in our future however we want to.  One issue I have is when things happen and it seems to be history repeating itself.  It's interesting because I think about that all the time and then just the other day my boyfriend said that exact thing to me.  Well, history repeats itself in different ways for different people and we are never sure what the reason is.  If we look at it as if it actually is history repeating itself then we seem to feel as if we are in a residual loop like Groundhog Day.  Some people look at it like a second chance to change things.  Others look at it as if they will never get out of the same rut they were always in.

My history that repeated itself was that I was in love with someone who was all wrong in everyone's eyes and chose the safe bet back then and now.  Back then it was someone who would never really be there for me the way I needed him to be and who would not be stable or the husband that I needed in my life.  I was in love with someone who would have cheated on me, stayed out late, pissed me off, spent all of our money and just overall been a bad, unstable, unreasonable choice.  When I got pregnant I chose to be with the one who had a job, apartment, stability, etc. and I honestly chose that over love.  When Billy came to me after Brian and I had already moved in together and started really being a couple and had decided to get married, I still stuck to my choice even though Billy told me he loved me and wanted to be with me and was sorry for ever saying that he didn't want to be there.  For that choice I got 5 years of marriage to someone who I never loved in the same way that I loved Billy.  Granted, I was able to stay home with my son, have a good life and Brian and I were great friends.  I still love my ex-husband as a friend and as the father of my child.  The problem is that he is just that: my ex-husband, friend and father of my child.  He is not my lover, and was never my true love.  I was in love with Billy and often wonder what would have happened had I changed everything that day that Billy came to me on his knees and declared his love to me.  I knew he loved me before and all but for him to be on his knees in front of me telling me that he really loved me and was sorry for being scared and basically asking me to leave Brian and come with him and that he would take care of me and my baby was something so intense that I could not even wrap my mind around it at the time.  What if I had said yes?  What if I had changed the course of history and went with him?  Would he be alive today?  Either way, we were friends after things changed and we never stopped talking.  I honestly think we were better friends after we stopped seeing each other than we were when we were together.  I never thought he would be faithful to me and I never thought we would work out in a relationship for the long term.... So, back to the point of history repeating itself...  I was seeing someone who I fell in love with but who would never commit to me.  We spent a lot of time together and he always made me laugh, we loved each other and still do.  We spent almost a year together as friends and lovers but I honestly knew it would never work out.  I was done dealing with him not texting back and not calling or showing up (again) and then I met someone stable with everything I needed who was attentive and had a good job, car, kids, everything stable and good and loving that I want and need in life.  When the one who was all wrong came back around again, we were still friends and he ended up moving in because he needed a roommate.  I had only been seeing my new boyfriend for about a month and honestly it was hard to change the relationship with the other guy from very good friends with very good benefits into a just friends relationship but we did.  Now he is my roommate and my boyfriend has to deal with that on a regular basis.  He can see that I still look at him in a way that is more than just friends in my heart.  Point is that Billy was my bad boy, the one who loved me and let me in and showed me his sensitive side but ended up a friend who was just my closest friend who knew me better than anyone else.  Now that is what my roommate has become.  The one who is my best friend and was my lover who makes me laugh and knows me the best.  The man I married was my safe-bet.  He was the one who was there for me and the one I wanted to be with because he loved me and treated me right but I never looked at him the way I looked at Billy.  The man I am with now is the one who loves me and wants to be with me and takes care of me and makes me happy but I still look at my roommate the way I looked at Billy and it pisses me off because I do love my boyfriend, I don't want to be with my roommate, but I see my relationship with Billy in him and I don't want him to go away, I don't want him to die, I want him in my life in some way.  He is a live fast, die young, punk rock kid who has already lived longer than many people who live like he does and I am always worried that if I don't take care of him, I will lose him like I lost Billy.