friends

ah, the little miracle that is facebook. what once was lost now is found and all that. the problem is that many are being found that may have been better off lost, yes?

not that i believe i am one of those. but there's a side effect to my past coming out of the digital woodwork on which i had not counted, and while it may have been a side effect regardless of timing, it's suspicious at best that some of those magically delicious long losties are popping up on the heels of my stint behind doors which required a badge to get out. not in some 'they've been watching and waiting for me to fall apart' way, but in a cosmic, destiny-is-creepy kind of way. some of those who are now in the list of one-hundred-some-odd folks who count as my 'facebook friends' were once among my best friends on this earth, and it no less than convicting that someone to whom i was once a trusted confidant was recently married and i was not even aware, let alone invited. (i say this not to blame her, mind you - this is entirely of my own making).

and so it now strikes me that i have spent my life cycling through people the way many cycle through clothing. you have a particular wardrobe that you bought for a particular year, and much of it goes by the wayside quickly as it has gone terribly out of style. in this way, a lot of friends are like acid-washed baggy jeans with pleats, and i don't think that is abnormal. everyone has people that come and go swiftly from his life. but then there are the staples: a good brown sweater, a handful of t-shirts and that one pair of levi's 501s that are just right. but in the end they're clothes, and clothes wear out. eventually, the t-shirts get holes in them, some chick steals the sweater one night and you wear the jeans while hanging christmas lights and tear the ass clean out of them and have to climb down hoping none of the neighbors is outside that day because you decided it would be a short project and you'd go commando....but i digress. the point is this: even your staple clothing one day will be gone, and generally in 5-6 years or so if it's something you wear frequently. but most of you are probably not like that with friends. i am, or was. or am. hard to say these days.

starting in 6th grade when i moved to texas i cycled through a lot of friends quickly. i had one set of best friends for 6th, another for 7th and 8th, another for 9th and 10th, and yet another for 11th and 12th. now, there were some holdovers into college, even while i was in denver my freshman year, but starting with my return to dfw a whole new group came on and i left those who had been my friends and lovers behind yet again. now these people to whom i have shown no respect, but to whom i was simply willing to disappear (and in a couple of cases, actively tried to avoid), are back. now i am finding that while in most cases i'm alright with that as it would likely have happened anyway, there are a few over whom i am finding i feel genuine regret.

now, some who read this may be thinking 'i've known this sap for more than 15 years! what the hell is he talking about?'. those are the people who have known me since brandie. the fact of the matter is that without her to keep me in touch with the people i call my friends today i'd have let them go as well. i can't explain why, really; i just know this to be true. i am simply not built in such a way as to be inclined to keep in touch. i don't call, i don't write, i don't send flowers, i don't sing love sings anymore. i just don't. i'm sure there's a pathology there that i'll uncover before too long, but for now i only know that i'm talking to people with whom i haven't spoken in more than a decade and some of them i wish i had known all along. too damn bad, you don't get a do-over.

life is funny that way. the ol' river only flows the one direction and if you try to swim upstream you'll find the best you can do is negate the current and go nowhere. forward, huckleberry. and in some way you might find that you wish you had been next to the other bank because you missed some really spectacular scenery, in another you may realize you napped right through the wide-open and beautiful bit only to wake up in a stagnant segment, dry-mouthed and covered in mosquito bites. and in the worst kind of way you'll find that the calm and serene fork was that left turn at albuquerque, while you're immediate problem has become the level 5 whitewater in front of you that you suddenly see leads for a fairly nasty waterfall. whoops. too bad. suck it. hold on tight, because i don't care how hard you swim, the best for which you can hope is that the pretty fork joins back up somewhere up ahead and that you don't break anything really important on the way there.

and i guess the final issue is this: sometimes that fork does join back up, and you can see what you missed. the trick is to find the beauty in that it has joined back up and not cry over the spilt-milk fact that you took the wrong fork in the first place. be lucky, feel lucky.

i kind of wish i had a do-over on today's entry. it's a little scattered, a little drunk-on-a-motorcycle. hope i didn't get any on your shoes...