Friends Are Friends For What?

Over the past several weeks, I've been getting ready to go to another place. In the latter half of August, I will load my belongings into a red Honda Civic named Roxie and meander across our great nation. This trek will deposit me in Wilmore, Kentucky for at least the next two years of my existence.

So where does that leave my relationships here? In many interesting places. Some people seem to have dealt with the idea; we can laugh and joke about me moving on. Some people seem to ignore the fact and would prefer not to address it. Others could care less.

And others, in an odd twist of fate, seem to be in the process of slowly writing me off. Letting the relationship wane and die. That when I drive down I-44 into the sunrise, I will fade out of existence. Just like I faded out of their minds sometime before I actually left.

Somehow, I feel like my friends are dying off long before I'd like them to. Maybe it's the constant of shift that plagues my every step. Maybe it's just how I perceive the gang this summer. Maybe things have been off ever since Aimee and I broke up, and
I just can't bounce back from that. Maybe it's the fact that the clock is ticking on everything I do, and I'm trying to pack as much as I can into the little time I've got left; and I can only be disappointed, because I can't get everything done. I don't know.

All I know is that I feel like Marty McFly; looking at pictures of the gang, and slowly seeing myself fade into nothing. Complete obscurity.

In the Hebrew culture, after you died, your memory was your afterlife. A life forgotten was the worst hell; a life remembered was the greatest heaven.

It's almost like I'm watching myself slowly be damned.

And the funny thing is, with so little time left, some of my relationships have come alive. Other people seem to share this desire to have meaningful interactions before I leave, and go out of their way to try and make those things happen. I thank God for friends like these.

And now... For some reason, I'm not scared to build friendships in the time I've got left. Some people, I'm just starting to become friends with them. And I will miss them, but I'll be glad that I knew them instead of standing by and watching them float out of my life.

To those who are still taking the time to be in the trenches with me: I love you guys more than you know. Don't think that it all ends in August.

And to those who are fading: Please don't give up on me yet.


Don't give up on me ever.