{"id":411,"date":"2002-06-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-06-05T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericbrooks.com\/whuzzup\/?p=411"},"modified":"2002-06-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2002-06-05T03:00:00","slug":"an-open-apology-to-my-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericbrooks.com\/whuzzup\/an-open-apology-to-my-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"An open apology to my friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In regards to one of my previous remarks on &#8220;Enemy of the State&#8221;&#8230; the one where I said &#8220;I have no friends&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I know I should have dealt with this sooner&#8230; this has gone though many, many drafts on my desktop, all while the other posts were going on.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve concluded that the more I say&#8230; the worse I&#8217;ll make it. To some of you, this will look like I&#8217;m just copying and pasting this from your emails when you complained. This isn&#8217;t for you.  This is for all of the others I hurt that *didn&#8217;t say anything* to me.  No links.  You know who you are.<\/p>\n<p>Do I have friends on the web?  Of course I do.<\/p>\n<p>I have friends, who were freshly burned by Kaycee, and sent me money to  get my kids back, anyway. I have friends that sent us christmas cards, and gifts for the kids, knowing I couldn&#8217;t do the same for them.  I have friends that listened to me cry on the phone. I have friends that I have shared the most painful, crippling moments of this entire ordeal with&#8230; the chapters of the story that will never see its way to a web page. I have friends that knew when to give advice.  I have friends that knew when to just listen.  I have friends that have *never* cast judgement. I have friends that cut me slack at work when family problems were overwhelming.  I have friends that offered me a home on their websites, servers, and comment boxes when I needed a place to let it out.  I have friends that have done some absolutely phenomenal things for me and my children, and have sworn me to never tell a soul what they did.  I have friends that saw me say &#8220;I have no friends&#8221;, and weren&#8217;t offended&#8230;. they dropped me a line to say: &#8220;I know exactly what and who you meant by that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That remark was *NEVER* directed at my friends.<br \/>\nWe&#8217;re going to leave it at that.<\/p>\n<p>*You* have changed the lives of a family you may or may not ever meet.  You need to know that.  You need to know what you&#8217;ve done with your random acts of kindness and friendship.  You need to know all you&#8217;ve done for me.<\/p>\n<p>And *you* need to know that *I* know it too.<br \/>\nIt may seem at times that I forgot all that, but I never did.<\/p>\n<p>I am alone right now.<\/p>\n<p>Not as a wounded puppy afraid to limp out into the sunlight again.<br \/>\nI am alone by choice.<br \/>\nIt is the driving force at the core of my being.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s who I am.<br \/>\nI would have never found it again if it weren&#8217;t for my friends.<br \/>\nThis is not so much an apology as much as it is an acknowlegment, a &#8220;thank you&#8221; to you&#8230;<br \/>\n&#8230;my friends.<\/p>\n<p>For I am truly blessed, and sometimes wonder what I ever did to deserve any of you.<\/p>\n<p>Now enough of this &#8220;reality&#8221; bullshit, y&#8217;all&#8230; I&#8217;m gonna have a good time anyway! ;0)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In regards to one of my previous remarks on &apos;Enemy of the State&apos;&#8230; the one where I said &apos;I have no friends&apos;.<\/p>\n<p>I know I should have dealt wi&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,10,2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-as-the-web-burns","category-best-of-enemy-of-the-state","category-old-stuff","category-e-show"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>An open apology to my friends - WHUZZUP!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ericbrooks.com\/whuzzup\/an-open-apology-to-my-friends\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An open apology to my friends - WHUZZUP!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In regards to one of my previous remarks on &amp;apos;Enemy of the State&amp;apos;... the one where I said &amp;apos;I have no friends&amp;apos;. 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