Isn't it strange how some 1 you know can have such a great impact on you....?
Current mood:Indulgent
Category: Friends
On Sunday (Back in April) I had some time to sit down to a news paper. Though this is not something I do on a normal basis, I did apon this day. I was reading through the local part of the paper and came to the anniversary and engagement section. Laughing to myself, I stated that I always find myself not knowing any of those involved in these celebrations. But, as I looked through it, I chuckled that one of the ladies looked like an old friend of mine that I had, at 1 time, been very close to. Thinking that it could not be her I did not even think about it. Then I saw the names of the soon-to-be bride's parents. They were my old friend's! OMG! She's getting married to the son of one of my college professors! OMG! This is so cool. Totally a shock to no end, and I could not be happier for her. I heard she'd been through alot sence I'd been around her via her mother. So this bit of good luck and potential of great things was a great sight to see.I thought about the times I knew her and was close to her. Then I thought about how these interactions had such a great impact on my life!
I met her @ a music camp while both of us were in high school. She was very outgoing and I was quite the shy and quiet guy. She came up to me one of the days and we walked to the new library and talked for hours on end. We continued to see each other durring the camp and near it's end we exchanged e-mail addresses and went apon our seperate ways.
As time went on our e-mails turned to chatting and evetually I asked her to come to a high school homecomming dance with me. Beyond my comprehention, then or now, my mom suggested that she come and spend the weekend of the dance @ our house! She'd come up, see the game and half time show, spend that night, go to the dance the next night, stay another night, and go back home on that Sunday.This did end up working out and we had a grand time other than I was sicker than a dog. Though forbidden we spent our nights in my room talking and hanging out, swapping stories, and jumping @ every sound that came from any part of the house! @ the dance we had a wonderful, if not reserved, time being with those I knew and had introduced her to @ the game the night before. Though the week end seemed to fly by, she went back home, and soon after made a request, by e-mail, to be my girl friend. Although the relationship did not last long, she was my first girl friend. Little did I know how much more she was going to influence me.
Though only friends we continued to e-mail and chat. She told me of all the things going on in her life and eventually I learned why she had broken up with me. Though I should give more detail to my reader, I will only say that situations were of the upmost in drama and family conflict and I more than understood her need to part ways, and to be with those who could be with her in person and comfort her.
Time went on and we both got into new relationships. We still talked, but only as friends, still antisipating our next encounters at the next music camp. There I was her buddy. You'd think we'd been joined at the hip. If you saw one of us you saw the other. I was also her confessor. New life experiences had come into her life and some of them could have had life long concequences. I was there to talk w/ her and be there as the friend she needed. The week went on with us as close as ever and talks of, maybe, being a couple again. We parted ways to once again be friends through the internet.
The decision to pick my college had come to it's time limit. I needed to choose where to go. I had scholarships to any school I'd like to go to. Each audition I did was met with $ and a promise of a great education. But my friend and I had been talking alot. She was sure she was getting out of a relationship, and I was the one she wanted to be with when the timing was right. With this information I knew I wanted to be able to be near her when we made this progression, so I chose the school closest to where she lived.
I moved there in late summer to start the marching band season. Every time I had a chance to go see her I went. I was there nearly every day and durring this time my friend saw that we were not ment to be. (This also ment she had 'better' prospectives in wait.) Even though we did not get back together as a couple I became close friends with her parents at this juncture. It came that I called her mom, my mom. When I needed something a mom can only do; I'd come to her. She also became my spiritual adviser and mentor. What she taught me and showed me still affect me to this day.
Time went on and my college courses started. I made the top jazz band (as a freshman) and there I met the woman who is now my wife. My wife and I met and in that week we were the best of friends. We seemed to be what the other needed and life continued on without my old friend untill one day, much later on, we ran into each other while I was on a walk and we got to talking again. She was with a guy I went to high school with but we still wanted to catch up a bit on each other's lives. We talked and got each other's phone #s and talked very sporadically.
As time went on my life headed down hill, till one day I called this old friend to see what she was up to. She told me she was throwing an apartement warming party and I should come over and meet her friends. I was there as fast I could get there. She had drinks, and as she headed out the door to get more, she told me to help myself to what was there. She'd be back asap. Boy did I ever! I was so loaded by the time she returned I don't even remeber her getting back. I was making an ass of myself and getting sicker all the time. @ this she took me back home to sleep it off. Little did she know that I had alcohol poisoning from my binge. If I had not passed out on my belly I'd be dead today.
Although this sounds like it would be horrible, and it was, it was another turning point in my life. When I came back home from the hospital my (now) wife told me she found me passed out and could not wake me so she had to call an ambulance. (Much more to that story but will be in another writing.) This near death experience turned my life around. I went into everything at full tilt. I was in school again, I got married, started a band, and changed religions in what seemed like no time @ all. I became who I was wanting to be. Nothing was to stop me again.
Though some bumps in the road have taken place sence then; I have continued on that path. I still am going, with a few detoures, but I'd going into life in a way that would make Voltaire himself proud.
While thinking over the rest of Sunday, I saw how much impact one single person had had on me. A person whom I did not spend much time with in face to face contact, but one that changed me so greatly. Was all the change good? Maybe not. Looking back she was just words on a computer screen. But it did create the person I am now. It caused me to choose where I went to school. (Maybe I should have gone to a better school; maybe the one my dad went to, or maybe the largest universaty in the state...) But this inter-personal relationship swayed me. These decisions put everything that followed into motion. It even caused another major turn further on down the road. But I'm here! This is who I am! Thank you! If you ever read this, all I can say is WOW! Who would have ever known, while it was all going on, that this is what it would come to??
"Freedom is what you do with what has been done to you." - Jean-Paul Sartre.
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