This must be what non-alcoholic beer tastes like. Baking powder burns the nasal cavity like cocaine, without the high.1 I’ve always heard “the comedown” is worse than the euphoria of the high. Having never experienced the physical symptoms of a come down I can only compare it to the emotional crush of coming home to no wife and no dog after spending 48 hours with my best friends.2
Maybe this is withdrawal? Maybe it’s just loneliness. Thank goodness cats can’t read. Josh and Gwen would shit and piss on the couch, or… nowhere good.
I don’t handle loneliness well. It’s hard to look back at all those years I was alone, but not lonely. The inverse is so much worse. Way worse! When you’re lonely, at least when I’m lonely, I have no idea what to watch. Infinite streaming possibilities equals perpetual options to pass. At least the next five days have either a Stanley Cup or NBA Finals game. So distractions, but no cures. Sunday will be the worst. Monday my wife returns and I can put all of this behind me.
Clearly these are first world problems, but that’s what drugs do to you. They make you feel good and then irrationally miserable. My drug of choice? Male friendship, an acquaintance I’ve missed for the past twelve months since the last time I saw my adolescent friends. We met up again for Slide Away Festival in LA. Two years in a row feels like a tradition. I can only hope, and campaign my old friends.
Took a few years, but I accepted these friendships can’t possibly remain the same. How could they? I used to blame moving away for eroding all of my friendships, but the truth is I forgot the ending to Stand By Me.
I wasn’t ready for the pain that comes from choosing other priorities over my friends. I choose my wife, my career, and the life we’ve built over everything. I would do it again, everytime.3 No regrets, but priories have a price. And decisions have a price. You lose something to gain something. This isn’t alchemy.
My closeness with my friends, and my immediate family, has suffered a bit. I’m not sure if they feel the same way. I didn’t think to ask them when they picked me up from LAX. Their car was a time machine. I fell right back to how we all were when we used to spend every summer together.
I’ve been trying to remember all the funny shit we said in those car rides over the weekend. All the witty quips everyone had. Everyone had their moment of glory. Each guy said something astronomically hilarious. Everyone had something amusing or interesting to say. We all listened to each other with intently but with ease.
Again, I hope we make this an annual event. It doesn’t even have to be for Slide Away Fest. We just have to get together, at least once a year.
I won’t to go years without seeing these guys. I don’t want to write the words “although I hadn’t seen him in years, I know I’ll miss him forever.” I don’t want to write those fucking words. And that’s what I’ve been fighting for since we all became adults, especially the past five years.
I often don’t feel the reciprocation I believe I deserve, but what matters more than my ego? The friendship. While time has calcified my heart from disappointment, I am maturing in handling my response to “letdowns”. It’s not personal, only I can make it personal. Everyone else is just living their lives too.
The truth is, why I fight for this ole gang to stay together, we’ll never have any friends later on like the ones we had when we were all seventeen and eighteen. Not many I know do. This thing of ours, nothing could ever replace.
1 I’d like to make it 100% clear to anyone reading: my employer, my mother, my wife, my future kid(s), anyone whom I wish not to embarrass, I have never tried cocaine, nor have I ever seen it in person or even been offered it. I have been offered non-alcoholic beer though. I rudely declined.
2 We unfortunately missed one of the ole gang.
3 I never thought I would have the life I have now. Never thought someone would marry me. Never thought I’d have the dog I have. Never thought I’d have the professional success I have.
Disaesthetic 