I actually wanted to write here about something that actually happened a couple of weeks ago. The reason I'm doing that is that what happened threw me for a loop fora while and I felt like I needed some perspective on it all. Plus I tried once already but I just wasn't saying what I wanted to so I gave up to come back fresh to it later.
About two weeks ago I met up with some old schoolfriends. I ran into one of them, a guy I hadn't seen in about 5 years, during my lunchbreak and they came into the library to invite me out for drinks.
It was weird to begin with, we quickly found ourseles falling into the same old patterns, even using the same old jokes, but things were noticeably different, the social dynamic was way off. I wasn't the butt of every joke anymore, my own jokes weren't falling flat. Even weirder, I was looking on these two guys, people who during High School I held up as being the 'cool kids' and just thinking 'wait one minute, I'm cooler than you.' It started off with little things, like them being impressed by my knowing a few attractive bisexual girls, but eventually they were telling me about buying porn from the Happy Shopper and not having all that many friends and I was just sat there, feeling slightly thoughtfully superior.
Then came an even bigger curveball. One of my friends told me that he had bowel cancer. Not the kind you get better from.
It was at this point that I realised just what was happening. Real Life was happening to my childhood, right in front of me. For good or for bad, my mis-spent youth had become almost enshrined in my head. The people, the places, if I never saw them again they were destined to stay 16 forever. This may seem an obvious observation, I'm sure plenty of people do the same, but it was pretty shocking at the time. I guess cancer can do that to people.
So this little bubble of NeverNeverLand had just been popped by a big ol' hunk of Real Life colliding with it at full speed. I sit there and I see how far along the 'grieving' process my two friends are, to the point where they're making jokes about 'The Big C' while I've just ben flabberghasted to find out one of my oldest friends might not be around in a few years and I felt completely disconnected.
It's true what they say, you can never really go back to your past. You can visit it for a while, but you'll only feel like a tourist. Hopefully though, you can use it to build something new. I'm gonna go call my friend, see if he wants to do something...
About two weeks ago I met up with some old schoolfriends. I ran into one of them, a guy I hadn't seen in about 5 years, during my lunchbreak and they came into the library to invite me out for drinks.
It was weird to begin with, we quickly found ourseles falling into the same old patterns, even using the same old jokes, but things were noticeably different, the social dynamic was way off. I wasn't the butt of every joke anymore, my own jokes weren't falling flat. Even weirder, I was looking on these two guys, people who during High School I held up as being the 'cool kids' and just thinking 'wait one minute, I'm cooler than you.' It started off with little things, like them being impressed by my knowing a few attractive bisexual girls, but eventually they were telling me about buying porn from the Happy Shopper and not having all that many friends and I was just sat there, feeling slightly thoughtfully superior.
Then came an even bigger curveball. One of my friends told me that he had bowel cancer. Not the kind you get better from.
It was at this point that I realised just what was happening. Real Life was happening to my childhood, right in front of me. For good or for bad, my mis-spent youth had become almost enshrined in my head. The people, the places, if I never saw them again they were destined to stay 16 forever. This may seem an obvious observation, I'm sure plenty of people do the same, but it was pretty shocking at the time. I guess cancer can do that to people.
So this little bubble of NeverNeverLand had just been popped by a big ol' hunk of Real Life colliding with it at full speed. I sit there and I see how far along the 'grieving' process my two friends are, to the point where they're making jokes about 'The Big C' while I've just ben flabberghasted to find out one of my oldest friends might not be around in a few years and I felt completely disconnected.
It's true what they say, you can never really go back to your past. You can visit it for a while, but you'll only feel like a tourist. Hopefully though, you can use it to build something new. I'm gonna go call my friend, see if he wants to do something...
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Anyways. No but I do have eye bogies now from crying too much. Blah blah.
Cherry xoxoxox