The first person on this list is our friend Possum.
Possum
She really is more of Ahmie's friend, but both of us have grown very fond of her and miss her very much.
Ahmie got to know Possum during high school with her literature magazine. Possum did not finish high school, she dropped out. Eventually several years later she did get her GED, and started going to Art School. However Possum never seemed to be able to finish anything she started aside from the GED though (she is so intelligent the GED was no challenge). I don't want to go into too much detail because there is much that I think is too personal to delve into.
Have you ever had a friend that for some reason really loved and you can't really put a finger on it? Possum is the personification of that type of friend. She really is greater then the sum of all of her parts. Her eyes are so big and round, the curve of her nose, the shape of her lips, each individually may not be the most beautiful by it self but all together creates a very stunning face.
Much like her face and physical beauty, she is also a beautiful person in the inside also. Her internal beauty has a haunting sadness to it. I do not know anyone who has lived more than she has. She dropped out; she traveled across the country, been homeless, has seen the best in people, and suffered from the worst of people. She can spin a tale full of beauty about the life experiences. She sees the world differently from most people, she truly believes in the best of people. This despite experiencing the worst from some people. There is a wild innocence about her, as if she really is a fairy in the real world.
In fact Ahmie and I tried to give her a chance to make a break from her old friends and surroundings. After a year of Art school in Pittsburgh, she dropped out much to the chagrin of her mother. Ahmie and I asked her to come live with us in Virginia. We laid some ground rules. Possum got a job right away.
Her current plan at the time was to become a Stylist and was planning to go to school in DC so she can work for Vidal Sassoon. Her immediate goal was to make enough money to purchase a car. She had a friend that promised to get her a VW bug for 800$. Once Possum made enough money she went back to Cleveland and gave to her friend the money. Not surprisingly, she did not get the aforementioned car.
Granted we had talked to her about this "deal." We tried our best to dissuade her from going through with this. But, she wanted to go through with it even though every bone of our bodies said she was going to get screwed.
She in so many ways is like a fairy, but mainly the real world and her world never really fully fit. She has gone about her life getting into dangerous situations, overdosing on drugs, being homeless, being stranded in the middle of nowhere. She can tell such magical tales about her life and tragedies. However the stories that she spins are neither sad nor depressing, there always lays a sense of beauty amidst the bad. Her innocence / naiveté can be infuriating because she does not seem to learn from what had happened to her. She sadly repeats similar mistakes.
She reminds me of Delirium of the endless. Possum has the same feral innocence that she has. Possum, much like Delirium must have suffered some tragedy to make her that way. Unfortunately Possum also have a strange ability of attracting like minded people (people who take drugs) where ever she goes.
When she was staying with us in Ashburn, she would often take long night walks. In fact I gave her one of my flashlights so she could be seen in the dark. For some reason she had gotten to meet some people through walking around at night and at work. These new friends were people who used drugs (mostly marijuana). Towards the end of the summer she had gone to live with these friends of hers. Eventually she returned to Cleveland, because she missed her friends in Cleveland.
In the final analysis Ahmie and I failed to do what we had set out to do, which was to give Possum a clean break. We sacrificed some of our privacy to have her live with us. She did abide by our house rules. However by the end of our summer together she had returned to her old patterns.
Friendships are much like the seasons of the year; true friends never break apart but rather go through cycles; Fall and Winter of distance and silence, Spring of blossoming and renewal, and Summer of heat and passion. No matter the distance, true friends never drift clean apart. Like a well loved and read book, true friendship could be picked up at anytime and continued.
So for friends! Let's spin around for another round!
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