Thanks

This might be one of the bravest or stupidest things I have ever done, possibly both.  I have always needed people to help me, as I sometimes have trouble getting myself to do things and I hate being lonely, even though that is usually how I end up.  This was most apparent in late January of 1996.  I was reading the local newspaper when I caught a months delayed wedding announcement of someone I knew.   I admit, I as a little jealous.  Here was someone I felt I was at least equal to, if not perhaps better in some respects, and he was able to get everything he wanted out of life, and I was a failure in most everything I tried.  I was also hurt, because I hadn't seen him in many years and I was no longer a part of his life.  I had tried to tell him how much he was a friend to me on one of the last times I saw him, but things turned out awkward and I didn't say anything, either then or later.  I swore not to make the same mistake.  When I graduated high school, I made sure that I wrote two of my best friends exactly how much they meant to me and how to contact me later.  For some reason, they never did.  It was always part of my plan to have at least one, if not all three of them, in my life for a little longer, at least through part of college, since I knew I would need extra help to get by many of the social aspects. Without them, I only had my mother to turn to and not all of her plans coincided with mine; I ended up in a mess having never found myself.  That spring, I decided to contact them, by any means possible, to help get me out of my problems and help me on my way.  Unfortunately, I only had my mother for help.  I wish I had someone else, but she was crucial to one part of my plan, which I will mention later.  I knew she wouldn't help with the friend who had gotten married the previous November.  He was a little older then me, and my mother never liked him.  She implied that he was a bad influence or worse.  I thought otherwise.  I looked up to him as a role-model/big brother type. For instance, I started wearing ties in high school partly because he was one of the guys who occasionally did so, and I wanted to be cool like him.  He taught me things, both good and bad, that I wasn't going to learn anywhere else.  Too bad not enough of them stuck.  My mother liked the second friend, but there was a different problem with him.  I barely knew anything about him, but I only realized that in hindsight.  That shows you how good a friend I was.  I still felt close to him, mostly because he was the last good friend I had contact with.  He transferred out to a four-year university a year early and without my knowledge.  It only hit me semester later that he was gone and I no longer had any close friends (I never made any in my four-and-a-half years of school).  When I had housing troubles when I transferred myself, I almost tried to reach him.  I didn't know if he was going to the same school I wanted.  Even if he were, I was to scared he would reject my offer, or worse, I wouldn't be able to handle living in a dorm with him due to my insecurities.  I would like to think he was there for my, even if I wasn't there myself.  My third friend was my ace in the hole.  This was because I though I knew something about him that he didn't know himself.  My mother and one of his parents graduated high school together.  I knew this because my mother is always on her class's reunion committee, and they always meet every five years, in not more frequently.  All she had to do was contact his parents, and they would contact him, and he would contact me.  It would have been perfect.  Except, I was to ashamed to ask for help directly.  So, I left my letters and instructions in a place where my mother could find them.  I also told her never to mention them to me, especially if she couldn't, or wouldn't, be able to help me.  After she found the letter, I waited a few weeks.  Nothing happened.  I thought either my friends had abandoned me or my mother didn't try to help, thinking I didn't need them.  Neither scenario was that promising.  I was left to fix my life on my own.  I took up some new interests, and that left me somewhat content, if not exactly happy.  I never had to confidence to apply for grad school again.  I didn't even try to pursue my dream jobs, ending up being set up in a business I didn't want; it has never been successful and should have closed years ago.  I never got to experience life, make new friends, or even think about learning how to date.  It is somewhat embarrassing, but I would imagine talking to them, over the years.  Some nights it would be the only thing that could calm my anxieties enough so I could to go to sleep.   I won't mention their names, as they can recognize themselves when they read this.  That is 'when' not 'if.'  I just need to say that I am sorry I wasn't as good a friend to you as I felt you were to me.  I should have let you more into my life, but I was too embarrassed and naive to do so and too scared and insecure to enter yours'.  I should have tried harder to be on my own, and I will always regret on all of the things in both your lives and mine that I missed out upon because of it.  I am sorry I haven't yet lived up to my potential and become the man you knew I could be.  This is one reason why I want to go back to school.  I messed up my life so much, that the best way for me to move forward is to start over.  I know I can't go back even more, even though I wish I could.  You three have been a great influence on me, even after all of these years.  For this, I will always be grateful.  Thank you.
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If I get all three of you to read this, it will be a major accomplishment.  I wanted to do this for Thanksgiving, but I lost my nerve.  Still, Christmas is just as appropriate.  I am getting ready to tell my mother I want to go back to school, both UK grad school in the fall and maybe some undergraduate work this spring if I can't make the grad school deadline.  I probably missed the spring semester deadline, even for non-degree, but we'll see.  She might say we don't have the money, or try to convince me to do something else.  Some days it seems like she is deliberately trying to sabotage me.  It is embarrassing.  I am 45 years old and I still live with my mother.  Technically, I work for her, as the accountant set the store up in her name only.   I need to grow up and be a man.  That is why I posted that topless profile pic for a few days.  I bet done of you would do that.  I might put it back up after the holidays.  I am not asking for help or support; it it good enough to know that I can still get in touch.  I messed up my life, but having even a part of you back has given me hope.   So I thank you R., A., and B.  Merry Christmas.  Hope to talk (and play) with you soon.