Six Perfect Days

How is a person supposed to continue with “daily life” after having the best six days in a very, very long time? It seems that I’m about to be forced to find out.

My best friends, who I wrote about in the two previous entries, came up here from Illinois and stayed for six days and we had a blast. I’m not going to do a play-by-play of what we did right now (that’ll probably come on Saturday or so, after I have time to put up more than just the pics that are at the end of this entry), but we did a ton of stuff and got to spend a lot of quality time together.

Looking back on the past three to three and a half years that we’ve known each other, it’s kind of strange how we all met and how our friendship developed.

Lisa was the first one I met. Believe it or not, I was chatting in a chatroom on the site of a Christian singer. Somehow or other, Lisa and I ended up talking that night about topics that have long-since flown from my memory. Whatever it was that we talked about, we enjoyed talking enough to continue to talk and then to email each other and thus became friends.

One day (or night) someone signed into Lisa’s MSN and I assumed it was her, but it wasn’t. It was her sister Jen (Not That Girl on Open Diary). Being as how I hardly ever turn down someone who wants to chat, we talked for a while and decided that we should talk more often.

During this time, my younger brother Nate (who is now in the Army and has been in Germany since last December) used to use my computer all the time while I was at work and he also became pals with Lisa and Jen.

Around the three-month mark of our E-friendship, I discovered that it was going to be Lisa’s birthday, and made a spur-or-the-moment decision to make the drive from up here in Minnesota down to visit them in Illinois for Lisa’s birthday.

When my brother and I popped the news to my parents, they were like, “No WAY! You aren’t going to drive 300+ miles to meet some strange girls you met on the internet!” Technically, since Nate and I were both over 18, they couldn’t really stop us. We finally talked to them enough and got them to stop being anal about the whole deal, and so off we went.

I had talked to Lisa and Jen’s next-younger sister, Christina (Country_Chick on Open Diary), a couple of times before, but didn’t really actually “talk” much until that first trip. We also got to meet Allie (.Distorted Image. On Open Diary), who is yet another of their sisters and who was NEVER online, then.

Although the girls had invited other guys over whom they had met on the internet previously, we were the first ones who had gotten invited over after such a short period of chat-time. Amazingly enough, my brother and I were sort of adopted by their family.

I won’t try to give the low-down of the whole time we’ve known each other, but after that first visit Christina (Tina) began to fight for time on the computer, as did Allie. Over time, we all became very good friends.

I won’t lie and say that the 300+ miles that separates us isn’t an issue. Most of the time, it really, really sucks. There’s no way I can count the number of times I’ve wished with all my heart that we could just go somewhere or hang out or just see each other face-to-face, but it hasn’t worked out. Then again, I think the distance is one reason that we’re all as close as we are.

When people who are friends hang out in person, it’s very easy to just get stuck doing superficial things. You get caught up in whatever activity you happen to be engaged in, and conversations tend to seldom dig into what truly makes the people tick.

Being as how we’ve been fairly restricted to chatting as our main method of being “together” (aside from the 10-15 times we’ve hung out in person), we’ve gotten to know each other much better than most people ever will.

I’ve never been one to open up to people. I’ve almost always been timid and cautious, to the point of being paranoid, when it comes to any kind of relationship (especially after my near-marriage that turned out WAY bad). I’ve never been a very caring person; I’ve always been purposely cold and distant because it’s much harder to get hurt that way.

Despite all that, somehow Lisa, Jen, Tina, and Allie found a way to get by all that and helped me to open up and learn to trust and to love (not purposely, it just kind of happened). There’s no way I could ever thank them enough, and there’s no way I could ever repay them for what they’ve done for me and for all they’ve helped me to get through.

After six days of being together almost constantly, minus four or five hours each night for sleep, not having them here is a bit strange. It’s like getting a huge hole blown in me by a shotgun, or being slowly imploded by some unseen force.

It’s been said that distance makes the heart grow fonder. Maybe it’s true…maybe it’s a load of crap. I really can’t say since the jury is still out on that one. What I DO know is that although I’m still up here, my heart and mind spend most of their time with them. I wish my body could catch up.

Even though I’m a natural pessimist and even though I honestly can’t see how it will ever happen, I do hope that somehow, someday, we get to live within hanging out distance.

As previously stated, but can never be said enough, I love you girls more than anything or anyone on earth. Even if I never really win the lottery (which I’m not giving up on, cause that would be a killer way to get to be neighbors), and even though it may sound a bit cheesy or cliché, you all are my treasure.

I miss you already.

Lisa, Tina, Me, Allie, and Jen at Minnehaha Falls

Lisa and I on a hill overlooking Duluth

Jen and I in a park in St. Paul

Lisa, Allie, Me, Jen, and Tina on the Hennepin Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis

Tina and I on the hill overlooking Duluth

Allie and I on a fountain in the Como Conservatory

Jen, Me, Allie, Tina, and Lisa on the William Irvin iron ore tanker in Duluth Harbor

Lisa and I at the park in St. Paul

Jen and I on some rocks on the shore of Lake Superior

All of us on the Hennepin Avenue Bridge again

Tina and I at the park in St. Paul

Allie and I at the park

Jen and I on the hill overlooking Duluth