Josh

Then there is my Joshy.

Oh god what do I say about Josh?
I love him!
So very, very much.

He drives me crazy, that’s for sure, with his JST (Josh Standard Time) – Anytime he gives you an estimated time of arrival he goes above that by about an hour.
He is never on time.

I have disliked every one of his girlfriends since Cheryl (she was his fiancee)
who sadly died.
She was a sweetie alright.

And since then I feel like every girl he has dated has been trashing the memory of Cheryl, it’s like he doesn’t want to replace her but he doesn’t want to be alone.
It makes me sad because the women that he ends up going for treat him badly or have really bad habits that keeps them from being the type of girl that Josh can settle down with.

Some of you might read this and think that there is something underlying here with my feelings for Josh, a sort of Dawson and Joey- like relationship that might cause me to feel this way.
But - although Josh is close to my heart, our feelings for each other are purely platonic and I merely want him to be happy and strive for the potential that is rightly his.

He really does put up with my shit though, and I give him shit regularly. Sweetheart that he is he always makes me feel like I am right and is always apologizing and making it better when he has done something wrong.

Josh and I met when we were both going through a very hard time emotionally in our lives.
Josh had a girlfriend who was ill in and out of the hospital and me, well that's another story...

About 4 years ago or so I was lying in a hospital bed, wishing my life was over, wanting to die.
I had attempted to kill myself shortly after my best friend was lost to suicide.
I had gotten into a bad relationship with a guy 3 years older then me, who had pressured me into having sex, gotten me pregnant and when I had an abortion, (which I was co-erced into after the promise that he would stick by me) he dumped me and told my friends I was a liar and a whore and they left me too.

I was alone.

I had to be supervised in the hospital because I was still a high risk for a repeat attempt.
Josh, who is a few years older then me was job shadowing security guards at the hospital and was assigned to sit and watch over me.

So here comes this tall gangly teenager, who looks so out of place in this ridiculous uniform, to sit down and keep me company.
He smiled and said hello and I looked up at him, nodding in reply.

And the bugger just started talking away, taking brief pauses after asking me questions, to which I would usually have a one word response.

I thought he was crazy, honest to god.

When he went for a bathroom break, my mom looked at me and said " I can’t believe that the security guard is flirting with you."

And then I told her where to go...

Because honestly, I love my mother but she can be SO wrong sometimes.
Although I thought he was crazy, I knew he was just being nice to me.

Which is why when he came back and asked me this ridiculous question I was unabashedly surprised.
He asked me why he was assigned to sit with me.
I asked him "Don’t you know?"
"Know what?" He said
" I tried to kill myself last night."
"oh…." Was his reply.
"Why?"

And with that we went on to talk about everything. And instead of asking the questions and babbling away, he listened.

He saved me that day.

While I still had a lot to work on, he had given me hope.

There was going to be other best friends and other boyfriends and other people to get to know.
I shouldn’thave been so sad to lose people that obviously weren’t good friends to begin with for leaving me on my own in my time of need.

When I was being moved to Health Sciences later that day to stay in the adolescent in-patient unit, Josh gave me a piece of paper with his e-mail address and some little doodles on it and said to me...

"When you get out of the hospital, e-mail me. I won’t forget you. You and I are going to be friends."

And 4 years later we’re not just friends, we’re best friends.

He introduced me to the love of my life, who I live with now.

Not that his intentions at our meeting was for us to hook up but he has kind of come to terms with the fact that we have.

We’re his best friends.

Josh sweetheart, I love you and I certainly wouldn't be here without you.