The last entry was philosophical. This one is more just sort of rambling memories...
It's interesting to think that the people who know me now know so little about me. While there are a few stories they've probably heard me tell over and over, that is such a small portion of who I am, what I've seen and what I've experienced and who I've done all of that with, that it's almost a wonder that they know me at all.
Some of my friends know or sense the wild, impetuous parts of me. But they don't know the stuff I've done that puts that side of me on show (versus the pretty calculated, organized, precise person they usually see). There are the impetuous romantic interludes (Tahoe Bob, San Diego's fling, Jamaica guy, etc.). There's the buying of the ridiculously expensive car just because I had money burning a hole in my pocket from a stock sale. There's the various places I've gone to on a whim (mine, theirs or joint).
Some of who I am was definitely influenced by friends who were important in my life at various points. All of their colorful ways and stories and ideas have influenced and saturated my life in some spectacularly TechniColor ways. Some people have heard about the psycho-knife-wielding-ex-best-friend-from-hell. Some have heard the various and sundry Carl stories - of which I was sometimes a part (i.e. the seeing the same cops twice in one night due to "dukes of hazzards shit", or the weekend of Lake Elizabeth stories with Carl and Matt wearing 12pack cartons for shoes, or Carl skiing down a mountain with his ski pants barely held on such that you could see his red briefs, etc.) and sometimes of which I merely heard (sometimes 2nd and 3rd hand - like the kicking the bowling ball story, the tearing the doors off his car story, the not getting busted when the cops saw drugs in his car story, the receiving all copies of a ticket story, etc.).
It kind of makes me sad that many of the people who played such significant roles in various stories in my life no longer have roles in my life. I know that for the most part these were necessary transitions, but it still makes me sad to not be around and friends with the people who knew the Kenny-killer stories, or who were there when I had the personal triumph of living through a white-water-rafting experience that I thought I couldn't handle and did anyway. I'm sad to not be able to reminisce with the boyfriend who shared the last-minute trip to San Diego on a 3 day weekend. I'm sad not to party with Trish anymore - she who threw kegs, did cartwheels in public bathrooms, made buttons for us with memorable sayings on them, and who helped invent the "soowee" rule for playing Quarters in the cabin.
I'm sad not to still have my best grade-school friend Heidi still in my life - someone who would remember me with braces, who might remember me as hopeful and optimistic instead of pessimistic and pragmatic. I miss the friend who would remember staying up all night talking about grade school and junior high boyfriends, about various firsts we experienced as friends (first kiss, first sex, first real boyfriends, first breakup, etc.). I want her to know how I turned out as a grown-up, and I'd like to see how she (and her kids and husband) turned out.
I miss the girlfriend that I used to talk on the phone to nightly such that we'd watch the same sitcoms at the same time and be quiet during the show and talk during commercials. I miss not only her but her awesome group of friends that all went to Cabo for her 30th birthday celebration where we made play-doh penises, had "party" names and all went into "The Office" together.
I wonder how many of the awesome stories and memories and fun times I've now forgotten. One of the joys of having long-term, enduring friends is that you can refresh each others' memories. I'm missing the people in my life who could help validate that the things I remember really happened - both the good and the bad things. I almost feel like I should start chronicling my memories in as much detail as I can so that when I get old and can't remember (god-forbid I get Alzheimers), that I have a possibility of keeping some of those experiences that made me who I am fresh in my mind.
This year seems to mark a few milestones. With that in mind, it seems a good time to reflect, to look back, to assess where I've been so I can perhaps get a clearer picture of where I'm going. Maybe it's a sign of old age that I'm waxing philosophical? More ramblings in the extended...
So what are some of these milestones? This year marks the 20th year since my graduation from high school. And last Friday marked the beginning of my 10th year with my company.
It's so strange to think of how much has changed within those two markers. I think if I could talk to the kid I was as a high school graduate, or even as the adult who started as a tech support engineer in my company, they wouldn't believe the things I'd have to tell them. I could tell them about friendships that I thought were rock solid that would fall by the wayside. I could tell them about friendships found in odd circumstances that proved to be much better bedrock upon which to build on my adulthood.
I could tell those former me's about lessons learned from various romantic relationships. Both painful lessons, and lessons about love, joy, sharing, compassion, and what it means to be a grown up. I'd tell those former me's that not taking shit from people is not the same as being a bitch on wheels. I'd tell them that if you wait long enough, you outlast the assholes at work. I'd tell them that politics is important at work - not to manipulate situations, but to understand the real places that people are working from so that you can be prepared and work through things (i.e. most people are driven by fear - you have to know what they are really afraid of).
I'd tell them that there are equally important lessons to be learned from friends: that you don't have to be dragged down by a friend in a spiral, that being a good friend sometimes means knowing when you can't do anything more, that true friends are always there for you, believing in you, pulling for you, and helping pull you along when you've lost your way, but still making you do the work because that's what's important. Good friends help you sort things through, work things out for yourself, and don't mind (much) when you keep banging your head into the same lessons over and over, so long as you are making some sort of forward progress with each new lesson.
I'd tell them that the most enduring lessons, those hardest learned are ones that they would have to learn themselves - that nothing I could say would sway them from those difficult paths, and that the journey to become who I am now would not have been complete without those hard won lessons.