in an attempt to write about more than what i sell and what is being recorded on my dvr...i wrote this while taking a bath this afternoon - don't worry, i wrote it in a composition book, you know, one of those old school black and white ones? when i'm really writing something, i mean more than the blog, i have to write it out by hand. then type it. i didn't type in the bathtub. oh, and when i write things, other than the blog, it's usually a bit depressing. that might be because i usually need to be listening to depressing music when i write...in order to write. okay. you get it. you've been warned.
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i heard from an old friend today. we've been in touch, on and off, over the last decade - but i probably haven't seen her since 1996ish, when our lives stopped intersecting, she had stopped spending her summers on the top of the hill a few years before and after awhile...we'd moved on. it seems that every couple of years we reconnect over email, send a few surface-level updates back and forth and then return to our everyday lives that no longer include each other. that sounds harsh - but i mean the exact opposite. we simply grew apart - nothing more dramatic - at least i don't think there was anything more dramatic. but she emailed today, and she reads my blog - and i realize i miss that friendship. i also realize that the last time i saw her i was 17 - at the oldest - and i wonder if she is as different today as i am. i wonder if we've both changed enough to reconnect and be real friends again.
she wrote something simple about those summers on the top of the hill and how when she thinks about them she is filled with great happiness - and sadness too. and i think about my own broken heart and how i long for the time when i saw that hill and heaven as one and the same. i wonder if the sadness that she feels is only longing for what once was - or if she feels a similar sense of disappointment and disillusionment. that last summer, when it became so clear i had over stayed my welcome. what i would not give to remove that last summer from my roster and pretend it all came to a picture perfect close. well, picture perfect with a whole lotta drama...desired drama.
and at the same time, without that last summer, would i ever have felt finished? without that last summer, i wouldn't have the same kind of we-made-it-through-the-war-together-nothing-can-break-us friendship with R and J. i wouldn't have seen "my girls" all grown up. i wouldn't have had those nights when M and G risked their own lives driving up that hill in the dark, just to look into my eyes and tell me they felt it too. when he wiped my tears off my cheeks, de-fogged my glasses and told me it broke his heart that my heart had been broken, and i laid my head on his shoulder when he offered to take me away from it all. i wouldn't have felt as done, as totally-and-completely-fucking-done-forever as i felt that last morning and continue to feel. i wouldn't have my red jacket hanging in my closet.
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but this started with me thinking about friendship and i lost track because i've been listening to that cd ever since rosh hashannah services and its gotten me all sentimental...which makes me think...which makes me frustrated and angry...which makes me sentimental...which makes me laugh...and cry.
friendship lost. i can't write (or think) about the hill, and friendship, and loss, without thinking about you. we were in it together from the beginning. inseparable. you were skinny and i was loud and we were a perfect pair. i spent so much of our time together with this ridiculous smile on my face, laughing, singing, laughing, screaming, laughing - laughing, that i didn't realize that you had stopped. and by the time i turned around - my laughter had hurt you. i looked at you and i saw sadness and i looked ahead of me and saw more laughter and so i choose - I CHOOSE - to continue on ahead. and from what i could see, you stayed in your sadness. and i hear that without me, at times, you have found your laughter and at times your sadness consumes you. i fear that when we are near each other, which is rare, i remind you of the times i left you alone. i fear that we will never laugh together again. i fear that we never laughed together to begin with.
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