When packing for a recent house move, I found several old journals and books of poetry. They were all filled with painful, sometimes pathetic memories. Reading them, one would think I have never experienced a moment's happiness, which could not be further from truth. I have a terrible habit of only writing down the times in my life when I feel miserable - leaving a trail of documented pain in my path. I have so many happy memories, but they seem somehow less vivid. I think that is partly because I don't have an opportunity to revisit them through reading old poetry and letters the way I do my painful memories. This must stop. So I have decided to write about my old best friend - a series of my favourite pre-adulthood memories.
My old best friend, we'll call him 'B,' was a tall and awkward teenager. Braces, terrible haircut, and arms too long for his body. The first time I saw him was at basketball practice. Being only 12 and he a male, I of course saw him only as a potential suitor and not a potential friend. He was in the class above me, and that added to his attractiveness, as an older boyfriend would surely add points to social status. He sent a friend to 'ask me out' on groundhog day - a day which I still secretly remember as the anniversary of our friendship. Like all junior high school romances, it didn't last. But unlike most junior high school romances, we did become fast friends. I spent most of middle school hiding out with him in his basement, watching such 80s film classics as The Lost Boys and Dream a Little Dream. Our understanding of the latter film was something which we believed classed us as philosophers beyond our years, and we watched it so often that we could recite the dialogue verbatim and the tape was worn ragged. We watched a meteor shower in his back garden once and shared silences which were never in the least bit uncomfortable. When his dad left his mom for a mistress, I let him spend hours talking about the ridiculousness of marriage - and we agreed it was a tradition only for the fool hearted. When my everything happened with my mother he vowed to hate her when I was angry, and showed her compassion when I was ready to forgive. B was always smarter than everyone I knew, but he was as modest as he was intelligent. I loved to listen to him talk about Mutiny on the Bounty and other novels that the avgerage 13 year old would not understand. His locker was overflowing with books and papers, and I enjoyed volunteering to clear it out only to see him scoff at the suggestion.
High school brought a boyfriend for me and a girlfriend for B, but little change in our relationship. He still wrote me letters on my birthday, mainly outlining our many adventures and highlights of things to come. We shared an incurable insomnia combated only by talking on the phone until the early hours of the morning. He told me of every idea that popped into his head, like the 'psychological yawn' and rocking chairs as metaphors for relationships. We agreed we would someday write a book in which we would write our novel ideas and quotes. He once wrote to me 'never forget, kayak is kayak spelled backwards.' It is a mantra I still think of in moments of frustration, in spite of the fact that I know not what it means. When I got my license, B was the first person I picked up in my car, and when I got my heart broken B was the first person I phoned. He took me to my junior prom in a tux with tails, wearing sunglasses and bleach blond hair like Keifer Sutherland in his favourite film. He danced with me in spite of hating dancing, and he didn't get angry when I spent much of the night pining over my ex-boyfriend. I spent every holiday with B and his family, and practically lived at his house most weekends. But as he was a year ahead, separation was inevitable. On the day before he left for college (a 9 hour drive away from our hometown), we spent the evening doing what we had done so many times before - listening to Van Morrison's Moondance on his dad's old record player and reminiscing about our lives so far. We sat on his back porch and he told me how scared he was to leave, and I told him how scared I was to be without him. I cried, and realised (perhaps for the first time) how much I loved him.
Even though a year later I ended up at the same university as B, our friendship was never the same as when we were young. But in spite of that there was always something that meant he was the truest friend I had. Unlike other friendships I maintained from home, B and were able to remain close as we changed, without reminiscing and reverting to old habits. He told me once that he thought I was the only person from home who would let him grow up, and I felt the same way. He remained, for many years, the first person I called when things went terribly wrong or extraordinarily right, and I still took everything he said to be gospel. Our last intimate moment took place five years ago, when I was at my worst and ready to give up. He drove to see me at work on my lunch break to say goodbye before leaving the country for several years. We sat in my car and said very little. I told him I would miss him and admitted that after almost 12 years of having him always nearby I was not sure how well I would cope with him being so far away. He made me promise I would do better, that I would go somewhere wonderful, do something great. He said he knew there was more for me out there, that I was destined for bigger than the town we grew up in and the life my family had laid out for me. And he believed it. And I believed it because he said it.
Since then B and I have seen each other a few times and exchanged a few emails. Too much time has passed for us to return to the way things were - we are both married now, live in different countries and have different lives. But things he has said and done still impact me regularly. B was the first person in my life who really understood me - who I let myself be completely real and honest with and who never judged me for it. I credit him for so many of my strengths because it was he who fostered and encouraged those parts of me. He believed I was smart and kind and good, and I wanted to be smart and kind and good so he would retain that faith in me. I don't think B will ever know how important he was to me - he was never one for being too sentimental (or as he called it, corny). But I like to think he still holds memories of our friendship dear to him. He once wrote me a letter predicting all of our birthdays to come, and in it he showed us apart for a long time while we explored the world and did miraculous things, but in the end we were back together. He wrote about us sitting on the porch of a nursing home together, thinking about the time when we were young and had everything in front of us and feeling lucky that we had taken advantage of it all. These days I hope it is my husband who I spend my final years with, but perhaps B was not far off - maybe we will someday find ourselves once again listening to Moondance and counting ourselves lucky for having what many people often miss out on in a world of globalisation and the 'rat race' - a friend for life.
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