Aaron: The Story

Before I wrote the last entry, I read the newest blog in Aaron’s journal. If you don’t mind, I’m going to share an excerpt (and I hope he doesn’t mind, although I don’t really have his permission):

It’s been an interesting yet somewhat uneventful day. Basically you’re average Sunday. The only highlight of it really was actually getting the chance to talk with Erin for an extended period of time. 3½ hours worth of time. It was mainly small talk about this and that. She was just getting around to a post I had asked her to read a few days ago because she had been busy with company and all. As long as it was read it didn’t matter when.

You might ask why this would have such significance or why it would be so important to know you talked to someone for three hours? Well, within your people that you talk to, don’t you generally have someone that you sit down and actually talk to about things, not just the simple chit chat between friends? In it’s most stressful form, this is that friend to me. She is the one that I actually talk to for extended periods of time to on the phone and the one who I would write meaningful stuff about in a letter.

Again, that’s only an excerpt, but I was so flattered by it, I had to include it here. And now to add my own two cents, to be utterly cliche…

Aaron is like the friend I never had until it seemed to be too late to be friends. He’s existed since second semester of sophomore year, though perhaps mainly as just another forum frequenter, another name on the buddy list, and eventually just a face I’d only see a handful of times that year. He was Gabe’s friend… he was Erik’s friend, who happened to be one of Gabe’s friends in my German class. But really, he was just… the OIiveIsIn, Mr. Blue… a mystery, really. By junior year we saw each other in school once in awhile, and then of course there were those sometimes hysterical car rides after school, lasting about ten minutes. If I drove Laura home too, it might’ve taken slightly longer, but it guaranteed confusion. “Erin.” We both turn and look. There were days of calling him a “hard ass” (Gabe’s loving term), there were days of my just saying “Erin, you’re stupid” and realizing I had just called Aaron stupid… fun times of flicking each other off, yelling things out the window as I drove down the street… all sorts of weird and great times.

Then senior year came… Aaron had his own car… Erin had no car. But the problem was, I was always after school for something. We occassionally saw each other in the hall, sometimes during calc when he’d bring in a pass, a few times during lunch first semester. But really, we’ve pretty much always been online friends.

At graduation, I just happened to run into him outside the huge convocations center. We somehow just automatically decided we needed an Erin/Aaron picture, so our mothers proudly snapped a photo or two of us. While we exchanged a few words, he invited me over to his house later that day for his graduation party. I ended up going, and for probably the first time ever, we hung out for like a half an hour. And oddly, I haven’t seen him since.

(I realize at this point that I’m pretty much rehashing the same story he wrote in his diary, I mean journal, but that’s ok… I’m reliving it all as I retell.)

We lost contact in early July as he went off to Texas for boot camp. Sometime in early August I found myself at Marcia’s house for her birthday, where I saw Erik for the first time in about a year. Later that night Erik imed me Aaron’s address that I had requested, and I found myself writing Aaron a letter. After that we wrote rather frequently. I think I have 5 letters and a postcard from Aaron, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you think about mail time and waiting not only for a letter to get someplace, but then waiting for a reply before writing another, that’s actually a lot. When I got to college, he started calling me either once a week or biweekly, depending on schedules and whatnot, and we talked on the phone… well, for the first time in our lives. In fact, I’m relatively positive the first semester I talked to Aaron more than my family and more than any other friend. It was really cool, and especially nice when he didn’t have internet access.

When we each had breaks, communication just kind of died. When I was home I didn’t write, and he didn’t call. When he moved to NC he was beginning a new life, and with constant internet access, it just didn’t feel like a priority to keep in contact with letters and such. We barely talked until yesterday.

Ok, so now that you’re up-to-date (and some of you knew that entire story from past entries ranging all through the years), I guess I’ll respond to what Aaron wrote.

I’m not sure I ever expected to stay in contact with Aaron… at least I wouldn’t have taken it seriously had you asked me last May. He was never one of my close friends – we never hung out – we never talked on the phone – he was just sort of there. But I can now tell you how thankful I am that we did make the effort to keep talking. I actually keep in touch with a lot of people, but it seems to be easier with everyone else. It’s less of a commitment to talk to people at home that you’ll see in a few months… writing letters does take time, which gives them extra meaning. Someone took the time to write you a letter, you know? Although I still don’t know Aaron all that well, I feel like I’m getting to know him better every time we talk, and everytime we talk, I wish we had spent as much time doing that at home.

So when I say that Aaron is like the friend I never had until it seemed to be too late to be friends, I mean that despite miles and hours apart, we’ve somehow grown closer than when we lived 2 minutes from each other. That even if we missed being good friends in high school, we’re catching up for lost time. And I really treasure that friendship.

Alright, enough of the gushy stuff… Aaron’s a hard ass – he is – he’s sarcastic, enjoys poking fun at me, and sometimes I really think the only reason he keeps me around is for entertainment value. I hear my “grr’s” are quite amusing… ;P