Should Have, Could Have, Would Have... Saturday, September 3

I was suppose to go to the wedding of two friends from my church.

I didn't go.

Instead, I stood by the water fountain at System Fitness with my arms wrapped around a fellow Polack, a close gym buddy of mine.  He's been MIA for about 3 months and just suddenly returned.  No word of where he went, he just disappeared, and no word of when he'd be back but there he was and I kept on randomly hugging him as we talked.

He had hit rock bottom, a bad rock bottom, and while all us thought he was on cloud nine with his new girlfriend he had booked himself into rehab because he was so far lost.

Wow.

It hit me hard to hear of his difficulties.  I know him being in his home country, the place he grew up in, didn't guarentee that he'd have people here he could reach out to for help but it reminded me of Korea and I didn't understand.  I had no one in Korea to reach out to.  My club members had become friends and friends had become club members.  The line between business and personal had faded and I felt always on show, always working.  And that's what it was, work.  It was work to always put on a smile and act as everything was fine and dandy when I felt so alone.

I didn't know what it meant to be alone until I got married and opened a business with him.

I used to leave my crying to the shower because I could at least disguise my red eyes as being from the hot water of my shower.

But to hear my friend here talk about how he felt he didn't have anyone he could reach out to really shocked me.  I didn't understand.  I couldn't understand how he could feel so alone here in Canada; he's from Canada.  I could understand why I felt alone in Korea, it wasn't the country I had been born and raised in and I was clearly an outsider there not only with being a foreigner but because of my professional and status.  But he's from Canada, has family here and he fits in here.

I left that conversation feeling sad and yes partly responsible for him feeling so alone.  I arrived home from seeing him, cried, and then private messaged him on Facebook to say sorry and to extend myself to him.  I should have reached out to him earlier.  I figured, like the rest of them, that he was on cloud nine and was just busy up there with his girlfriend.  I suspected something two weeks ago when I still hadn't seen him at the gym.  It wasn't like him to be away from the gym for so long; he's very much a gym rat like me.  I should have messaged him.  Should have, could have and would have but then I got all caught up in landing this new coaching job and with my own training.

I got too busy and too distracted to divide my attention and share some with a friend.

Ouch.