Tuesday, November 14, 2006

post-reunion thoughts
It’s November 2006.

Crazy.

Time flies. Crazy.

What is it with space and time?

Last Friday night was my 10-year High School reunion. Last Sunday, I opened up my Senior Year yearbook to see who wrote me messages. Last night, me and Lisa were remembering back to our silliest days that were accompanied by the score of the Titanic.

That was 10 years ago.

Last night, I bought and downloaded “Enter the Dru” by Dru Hill from itunes. It was only $5.95. Last night, I was driving to a fundraiser dinner at Chevy’s and what I found playing on XM64 The Groove was “The Blues” by Tony, Toni, Tone.

Damn. That’s way back.

10 years ago, I was learning what it was to be a college student. I was learning how to live by myself with 7 strangers in a large suite. I was learning to make friends with a whole mess of new people. I was still trying to hold on to my high school roots. I was learning how to balance a long-distance relationship without cell phones with oodles of minutes, without consistent email use, without a car, without disposable income, without the same schedule (you know, wake up, go to school, leave school, talk on the phone). I was learning what it meant to be a “Fil Am leader”. I was learning to become an MK sucker.

I was unconsciously learning to let go of many things. As my supervisor asked us this morning at check-in, I was letting something go (just like the trees do the leaves, like the lakes do the ducks) so that I can make room for something new.

Maybe, let’s take a step back. A few months earlier – at graduation time when I last talked to or even saw the people I saw on Friday night. Let’s say May 1996.

10 years and 6 months earlier, I was ready to leave high school, but I wasn’t ready to leave my friends or my girlfriend. I wasn’t ready to leave Carrows nights. I wasn’t ready to leave the afternoons and nights (and CMC) at Estee's or at Mon's (minus the CMC). I wasn’t ready to leave my 84 Accord beater. I wasn’t ready to leave nightly home-cooked Filipino food just the way I liked it. But, you wouldn’t have heard me admit to that. I probably didn’t even realize it – all but the friends and girlfriend part. Maybe the girlfriend part.

The only reason I say that is because I remember the night before the early crew, the ones who were going off to semester based college, we all met up at Thy’s and chilled and basically said goodbye to college. Some people started crying. I didn’t. It’s not that I wasn’t affected, but I think I was just naïve to the whole situation.

But, that was September. Or maybe it was August. Nonetheless, I skipped ahead again. I’m supposed to be in May 2006.

This is what meant the most: Senior Ball. And that involved some of the most difficult decisions I made at that time – all decisions that now seem somewhat relevant yet also utterly passable. There was a major issue of loyalty, friendship, and love. Well, actually, at the point, it wasn’t love yet. So it was also about extreme like.

Anyway, assuming that situation presented itself again now all the representative parties: the guy (me), the best friend, and the returning love, the situation wouldn’t even arise. No decisions would be made. No, not because Senior Ball doesn’t exist anymore, but because there wouldn’t be any decision asked to be made. But that was what High School and adolescence was: gut reactions over logic; immediacy was at a premium; patience was not because back then your soulmate could come and go faster than your pager greeting especially if they were in limbo.

I spent a lot of high school life worrying about being wanted. It wasn’t just about a girlfriend, though most of the time unrequited “love” endured my self-esteem issues. It also meant friends, social relevance in terms of the mainstream pulse of the school and the community. It meant satisfaction in the eyes of my parents, my sister, and my cousins. It meant glory in the gradebooks of my teachers. There was a lot of acceptance I was dealing with – as were most of the people around me.

There’s still a whole lot of issues of being wanted now. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to pretend, like many do at my age, that they’re content with who they are and who and what desires (and completes) their existence. Yet, there is a major difference between letting that need of being wanted guide your decisions and just accepting that their rooted in thought processes but not necessarily the anchors halting our drift.

What do I do with a feeling that most of my friends, though they may be saddened for a few minutes, would not really be affected much at all by my disappearance? Note, not death, but just in physical and emotional obscurity. Death makes you take notice of how much that person could have filled in the many pockets of voids in our lives – silent irrelevance carries a nostalgic kick but nothing more – until, of course, someone is dead or dying. But what do I do with that? Nothing. There’s nothing really wrong with that. Friends are great. Family should be greater. And friends, most of them at least, can never persist as family, no matter how much we once thought they could.

That’s where I am. 10 years past feelings that letting go meant losing. I’ve learned to let go, though, it’s always difficult. I’m always reminded of this when I grow my hair long enough to bug me enough to want to cut it. When I resist, I remind myself that it is hair and it will grow back. I let it go, and more will grow to fill the remaining void.

Yet, it’s not the same thing with friendships. Not anymore. Although mid-twenty year-olds have decades of growth left our foundations are pretty solid. We still have decisions to make that will dictate the further journey of our lives, but we’ve had enough life-experiences to heavily influence how we will make those decisions. I think it’s the same with how we build our social circle; the inner circle. For most people, no matter how social they are, invitations into an inner circle of trust and true partnership are given meagerly. So, when the members of that special roundtable decide to move on, it is extremely life altering in very subtle yet powerful ways. Most of these “knights” will linger in their roles and eventually disappear except for holiday get togethers and the occasional birthday or new engagement/new wedding/new child/new home celebration that are always fun and uplifting but very infrequent.

You could fill in these spots with new friends, but best friends are hard to find.

10 years earlier, this could mean a catastrophic ending of the world panic attack. Now, it’s just an accepted part of life that is sad, yes, but not at all an emotion all points bulletin.

It’s okay for most people, anyway, because they’ve found their loves and their lives within that love. But for folks like me, who are far from love and further from a life with any sort of that type of love, it does affect me more especially when there is no lone best friend to rely on. There are wonderfully generous close friends, but no one to truly rely on. I think, that is the part that is hardest to deal with. Again, it goes back to the feeling of being wanted. Yes, I want my friends to want me – to want and need me enough as a friend that they could place some, not much, just some of my concerns on their shoulders at times when I need them. But they can’t, and it’s understandable because we’re all busy with the many things that keep us late-twenty year-olds busy. And, the last thing I want to be is a burden to the folks I care about the most.

I think a lot of people in my shoes would turn this lack of companionship into an obligatory search for a warm body. No. While there’s nothing necessarily dastardly about that, it just ain’t me. I joke about running away from anything committed, but I don’t date either. I can’t small talk. I pick and choose my spots all the while over-analyzing every step. I wrongfully build-up promising situations and quickly retreat when they don’t meet my yet-indefinite standards. Yet, another reason I try to stay away from situations because having people get caught up in my issues has never settled well with me (as it shouldn’t anyone with a pulse.)

This shouldn’t be considered complaining. It’s far from that and that may be why writer’s block has endured. At my most prolific, everything could qualify for an angst-ridden rant. Hence, the hurt poems. The long list of hurt poems. But now, I can’t complain about small stuff. Small and irrelevant (not small and precious). I have a wonderfully mundane and beautiful life. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Consciously, it is not ideal for me as a dreamer, but it’s nothing I can, should, or want to complain about. I can criticize it though and when I do the criticisms are pointed directly at myself. I can make changes. As yet, I haven’t. Though I’ve tried in incremental portions.

And fittingly, I’ve lost my train of thought and reflection.

Ulam cooked @ 5:57 PM

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