Old Friends

I was going to try and write everyday that I was on Spring Break. Make a nice little travel journal. But that didn’t excatly work out they way I wanted. I’ve been having really bad migraines lately. Like in the past few weeks or so. I’ve been taking this over-the-counter stuff that kinda helps. It doesn’t get rid of the migraine, it just makes it bearable. I think I finally overdid it though. I got sick at my aunt’s house in Indianapolis and then again in Chicago before I figured out the connection. Everytime I took that medicine I ended up vomiting. So I stopped taking the pills and I stopped getting sick. Except my body has gone through three days of being this sick. So now I’m just tired and my stomach is really unsettled. I can’t stop though. I can’t stop and spend three days lying on a couch pumping fluids into my system because I have church Sunday and school Monday. And I’m still a few hundred miles from home. So I push on. At least I’m keeping food down now.

The best part of Spring Break so far was Notre Dame. I really forgot how comfortable the company of old friends can be. I realized I’ve know Brian and Manny for near 10 years now. Thats basically half of my remembered lifetime. I can’t believe its been that long. We haven’t been best of friends that whole time but regardless – they’ve been in my life and I’ve been in theirs. They know things about me not because I’ve told them, but because they actually lived it with me. There’s something so amazing about that kind of friendship. There’s something so warm and comforting to be around people like that. We didn’t do anything all that amazing while I was there. Manny showed me around campus while Brian finished up his meeting. We went out to dinner and then back to Brian’s apartment. Where we did nothing but sit around and relax. Neither Brian nor Manny wanted me to leave, but I was tired and needed to get to Chicago. It didn’t occur to me after I left how much I missed those guys and how much I loved both of them. Old friends are the hardest to come by. Most people just don’t last. I’m not accusing anyone of being a bad person – there are plenty of people that I’m just not friends with anymore as well. That is part of life, part of growing up. Old friends are amazing. They might not start off as best or even close friends. As years pass, you go through things together. Sometimes they are global things you experience at the same time, like 9-11. Sometimes they are more personal things that is only between you and them, like the death of a loved one. As time marches on, you slowly realize how long you’ve known them and how much they’ve come to mean to you. Your life wouldn’t be the same without them. It does take effort, like calling or planning time to see each other. Sometimes long periods of time will pass when you can’t see one another or you don’t hear from one another. But when you do talk or you do see each other, the comfort, the safety of old friends is irreplaceable.

I will always have a little crush on Brian. He’s just an amazing guy. I feel really lucky to have him just as a friend. He’s saved my life and for that, I’ll never forget him. Something somewhere has changed in the past 5 years though. I no longer feel like I’m the leech or parasite in our friendship. He doesn’t look at me like I’m weak or incapable. I don’t know what changed or when it changed, but I feel like I’m a whole person in his eyes now. I’m not saying I know who I am when he looks at me or anything, but… I don’t know how to say it. I am who I am, and he accepts me as such, and he loves me as such. Coming from him, who has seen the darkest parts of my life, who has seen me at my weakest, means a lot to me.

I will always love Manny. As much as I liked to deny it, he does know me exceedingly well. He can sense so much in me and he’s become a lot better at responding, well, appropriately. He always wanted to be there for me, to help me fix whatever was wrong. I appreciated that, but at the time I was more afraid of what would happen when he wasn’t there. This may be the part where I am too realistic. I know, if he could, he would be there every moment I needed him to be. The reality of life says that isn’t always possible. Not to his fault, but to the way life turns out. He might be unreachable on a plane or on a film shoot where he can’t take calls. Or an acme weight might fall on his head. Life throws curveballs at us. I knew he wouldn’t always be able to be there for me, but he was scared of letting me go, even a little. He was scared that I would self-destruct. I understand his fears, but I needed to learn how to cope when he couldn’t be there for me. I needed to learn how to deal when life got hard or I went crazy. He gets that now. I don’t understand how or when that changed, but he understands. He knows I know he’s always there for me. But he also knows that sometimes I need to work it through for myself, or even without him. We will never be together the way both of us wish we could be. It just wasn’t in the cards. I am who I am, and he accepts me as such, and he loves me as such. Coming from him, who has seen the darkest parts of my life, who has seen me at my weakest, means a lot to me.

So the moral of the story….treasure your friends. You never know when you might turn around and they will be your oldest friends.