Which brings us to this week’s topic: friendship. Without revealing their secret identities, the group of five which Jimmy referenced was enough to throw me back, along with Drew’s wince-inducing pictures on facebook, showing us in all our voice-changing glory, the souvenirs of a time of awkwardness as well as unabashed love. But before I met the other three, it was Jimmy and me.
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a love letter to St. James, it’s just that even now, here we are with traces of competition in our blood. My first “real” encounter with Jimmy was when we were both running for class vice president in, I believe, fifth or sixth grade. Now Jimmy had run several times before, and I was a newcomer. The presidential race was a popularity contest, and in a lesson that would not sink in until much later, the boy who won had nothing to say at all, he was simply well known. I think it would be safe to say, however, that Jimmy and I were not the cool kids. Not uncool, per se, but flashing a smile wasn’t going to do it. A long story short, for no discernable reason, I ended up edging Jimmy out by a few votes. And as we sat there, as soon as the results were announced, Jimmy came over to my desk and said “I want to be the first person to shake the new vice president’s hand.” I was thoroughly impressed at his genuine love and kind gesture. He later told me he was fuming at the time, but simply thought it diplomatic. Regardless of the reason, we started hanging out together, and here we are today.
I have a tendency to romanticize the past. It’s like restoring a painting, but changing a few of the colors, brightening it up a bit. So I don’t want to make my experiences with all my friends, the collaborative events as well as the one on one times we’ve had, more than they necessarily were. And still, my heart does move to remember these things – sneaking into high school dances in t-shirt and shorts, hating going to school dances, barbeque nights and 32 ounce bottles of root beer, putting up tabloid news stories around Westminster Woods, feeling like shit together through all our first breakups, feeling great together when the girls were mad at each other and we didn’t care, the surreal spin of hearing that Kathy was gone, the patience in everyone’s eyes when I told them that I was afraid of how close I came, and Gold Bond. So much Gold Bond.
I know, I know, this is starting to sound like a best man’s toast at a wedding where you barely know the bride. But I love these guys, and I know that I can always tell them what I’m really feeling. Of course there are others, and not just men, and you know who you are, but it would be too hard to represent everyone who has impacted my life. You have to fill in the blanks with your own name.
I love film and literature, and when I look at the plot structures throughout history, the archetypes, mythology, the bible, I find that the only endings that have a real payoff are those in which the protagonist has to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. And I realize that the problems I encounter, the ones that seem to rip my life apart, would surely never be compelling enough to create an even marginally profitable piece of cinema. And even though I wanted nothing more than for them to end at the time, I see now that there would be no contrast for redemption. This is one of those things that makes sense from the outside, but put me in a real pickle and I’ll surely complain. What I’m trying to say is that friendship is not only full of strife, it is dependant on it. Internally and externally, without the struggles we experience together as friends, we have little to hold us together. The joys are wonderful and hopefully plentiful, but it is only when we pull outward from the center that the knot is tightened. And when it’s all done and we’ve regained our feet, we can look back on it all with bright colors and brighter eyes, and raise a glass to all that was and is to come. For better or worse, we are who we are, and when we find others whose liquid complements our own, we can do no better than to pour together and drink heartily.
JBK
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