threeplusfire | LJ IDol, Week 15: Cracking Up

Melynda and I have a running argument that is a few years old now. Usually it starts when someone does something that causes one of us to raise our eyebrows and delicately say, "He's your friend." Over thousands of games of cards, cups of coffee, cigarettes, books, laptops, we could always count on at least one of us to say something terrible. It never ceases to amuse us.

It would be unreasonable to expect things to never change. I should have seen it coming. But I was so focused on getting out and getting away from high school, so numb from medication and hospitalization that I didn't pay so much attention to how it happened then. I stopped talking to most everyone from that part of my life. Later we lived so much in moments measured by semesters and summers that when it ended it caught us by surprise. Life goes on and on, and the nights feel endless at twenty two in a way far different from twenty eight or thirty eight. There was always a table in our favorite coffee spot, Metro, which let us smoke upstairs and stayed open all the time. I think I was the only one who loved the uncomfortable, German industrial decor chairs from the mid 1990s. Sometimes the air would shimmer with the smokey haze as Social Distortion screamed out of the speakers.

I'm still here. It feels strange sometimes, like I'm left behind even though I made choices to keep me here. Sometimes I wish I would crack and drift somewhere far away. Sometimes all I want is for everyone to be here, to have that friendship now that I deserve it more. When I first met Melynda I hardly spoke at all - now I talk too much. Melynda and I met in college, unfortunately through someone who turned out not to be the friend we imagined. Despite significant differences, we bonded in adversity and the madness of our final semesters at the University of Texas. Melynda seemed to collect boys with blue eyes the way I collected stupid crazy stories. Tyler had the biggest blue eyes and was in one of Melynda's classes. He made her crazy by asking question after question during a class presentation when all she wanted to do was sit down and be done. Sam studied in jungles in South America, smoked a pipe at times and dug things out of the dirt. He rented a house and the end of semester parties in his yard were legend. Nick studied theater design and never could hold all his cards despite having such broad hands. He had terrible luck with girls and broke his wrist stone cold sober on a skateboard at two in the morning.

Gene and I became friends in Prague after a year in classes together, on the university's program at Charles University. He passed out on my kitchen floor while a group of us played cards and argued about the rules. Later we would make a habit of getting drunk and doing things like grilling steak or watching screwy European movies. Jim taught us how to play mah-johngg and cooked incredible food. Elisa was the prettiest, friendliest girl who laughed without restraint. Together Jim and Elisa threw incredible parties with delicious food. Little Matt wore punk rock shirts and provided socialist commentary. James usually had something educated to say in response and they both put my current events knowledge to shame. There was Rachel, whose older sister I knew through the Slavic Department and her boyfriend Greg for ages was one of the guys behind at the counter at Metro. There was a counter girl I fell half in love with, stupidly and uselessly. It was all a tangled web. I met Sarah through Livejournal and her vicious sense of humor went along perfectly with the rest of us. Sometimes I forget she wasn't always there. Micah was like my brother; we got tattoos together after the world didn't end on a New Year's night in Houston. He picked me up in Dallas when I came home from the Czech Republic, running across the terminal and spinning me around like something out of a romantic comedy. His older brother Matt became a firefighter and dated our friend Tara. She could be crueler than any of us when she felt like it, and laughed the loudest.

The problem with living in a university town is that eventually most people graduate and then they move away. Our circle of friends has cracked and drifted like a glacier in warming seas. Gene went to UMass, Micah went all over the place, Sam moved to Colorado, Melynda went back to Houston, I went to the Czech Republic, Jim and Elisa went to California where they got married and had a baby boy, Rachel stopped talking to us unless she wanted a ride, Sarah went to North Carolina, Melynda and Tyler both moved up to Seattle last year. Matt still lives here but our paths never cross now. I have no idea where Tara is now and sometimes I see women who look almost like her when I am in restaurants. The taste of cold coffee and cigarettes is familiar, like the pebbled glass tabletops and the slick playing cards. Jim was the person who finally taught me to shuffle, unable to stand watching me cut cards haphazardly during our games anymore.

We cracked up, came apart, moved on, moved away. Looking back I can see our friends were so disparate, so unlikely. If classes, a coffee shop, Harry Potter, cigarettes, Shanghai Rummy and youth hadn't thrown us together we might never have seen each other at all.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

boxsofrain.livejournal.com

I always think about how odd it is that at one point myself and friends were all together in one location and now we are spread out, all over the world!

I really like how you interpreted the topic.

From:

melyndabelinda.livejournal.com

Terra is married and still living in Austin according to Sam.

I miss coffee and cards and smoking cigarettes. Growing up sucks. I wish I could have paused life in college.

From:

I didn't sign up for this timeline

LJ IDol, Week 15: Cracking Up

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