I found myself thinking last night. Being new on Facebook and coming across all of these people, people that were friends through high school and than faded away as we moved on, went to college, got married, traveled, got jobs, bills, responsibilities, and the day to day grind of living, has gotten me wondering how it all came to pass.
I was looking through the 1991 and 1992 Alamogordo High School yearbooks last night, just kind of reminiscing, and came across a letter that a dear friend of mine had written. She felt that the simple, pithy sayings that we usually would put in yearbooks would not suffice and had written me a truly touching note that truly defined our friendship. Remembering those days and the depth of our relationship at that time brought upon me a kind of melancholy. Where did it all go?
Our relationship was never even remotely romantic. The love we had for each other was one that is only understood by truly best friends. There was nothing we couldn’t talk about. We shared stories of our relationships with others, our dating trials and tribulations, our heartbreaks and our victories. Hours were spent on the phone together talking, laughing, crying. There was anger and joy, laughter and gried, remorse and spiritual rejuvenation.
It all began to change our senior year. I couldn’t tell you now what happened to precipitate our severance, but the friendship first began to change, and than to fade. I’m not sure either of us truly realized it at first but our relationship began to undergo a metamorphosis. Perhaps it was the pressure of knowing these were the last few months before our lives irrevocably changed. College was in our future, than work, and we were scattering across the country to move on with our own, individual lives. We would soon no longer be bonded by the common interests and experience of high school students. Soon, our individuality would define who we were as we took our first, tentative steps into the larger world on our own.
Our friendship was rocky that entire year, until a brief moment following graduation. Maybe it was the knowledge that this was the last time we could truly be what we were, kids, teenagers, secure in the absolute knowledge that we were, for one, shining moment, invincible. The old, familiar friendship was there, the old comfort.
As quickly as it reformed, it faded and was gone as summer migrated into fall and we all took our first, tentative steps into our new lives.
We did not speak again for 16 years.
In the interim we both got married, moved to new towns, got jobs, became different people from the callow, dream-filled youth we had been. Were we truly as naive as we seemed, ready to conquer the world (or at least our small part of it) and knowing that friendship and first loves would last forever? Or perhaps we were as we were always meant to be, dream-filled, innocent, and touched by just a spark of unquenchable optimism that nothing could extinguish.
We spoke last year on the phone. For some reason she had popped into my head and I got it in my mind to look her up. The conversation last for about 45 minutes. It was mostly small talk. There were no great revelations. After 16 years we had gone from being best friends to being barely comfortable acquaintances. We have not spoken since.
There is a great line from the movie The Big Chill. Sam Weber (Tom Berenger) says to Nick (William Hurt), after a rather tense exchange, “Hey, Nick? You know, we go back a long way, and I’m not gonna piss that away ’cause you’re higher than a kite.”
Nick responds “Wrong, a long time ago we knew each other for a short period of time; you don’t know anything about me. It was easy back then. No one had a cushier berth than we did. It’s not surprising our friendship could survive that. It’s only out there in the real world that it gets tough.”
There is no returning to what we once were, and in a small way that makes me sad. There are many things about high school and childhood that I am glad to have behind me, but the carefree way in which we put absolute trust and friendship in one another, those days are gone and I occasionally wonder if that type of change is inevitable.
I suppose that it is.
Peace out.