In the last few days I have reconnected with someone from my
past and while the stroll down memory lane has been a sweet one, I think that I
might have to get off of the reminiscing train for a while.
It’s so funny how when you come up on someone you haven’t
seen or heard from in a while how quickly they want to shove you into the
little box of who you were and don’t really take the time or want to know who
it is you are now.
Joe and I were kids ; and I do mean kids…teens; when we last
saw each other and today he is 40 to my 38, been married and divorced and at
his core is still pretty much the same old Joe I used to know. I’m sort of
happy that life seems to have left him un-jaded, me on the other hand? Well I am not the girl I was once upon a
lifetime ago.
Once upon a lifetime ago I used to be a little more shy than
I am today, a little introverted, a little reserved and a whole lot quieter. I
wasn’t the in your face, don’t fuck with me person I am today. Back then I
think I might have had ‘doormat’ tattooed on my forehead. Today if someone
tried half the shit that I let people get away with once upon a lifetime ago, I
would most likely be sitting in a jail cell.
I make no bones now. I don’t have to ‘qualify’ or conform to
anyone’s sense of right, wrong or belonging. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Joe is trying to do that to me,
but I know the path, I know the road and I know the players on this train and
save for one other person, there isn’t anyone that I would really go out of my
way to reconnect with or have in my life.
I am hoping against hope that he will help to put me in
contact with another old friend. Someone to whom I have something that needs to
be said. Someone I owe something to and it has been my wish for YEARS to find
him and tell him exactly how much he meant to me and exactly how much I appreciated
his friendship. Someone who deserves to know that he’s been missed and that
there isn’t a single year that has gone by since last I saw him that I don’t
think of him fondly and wish the best for him. I want to know that he’s happy
and I want to hear it from his own mouth… or in the case of the internet at the
very least by his own hand.
Like I have said a million times before… it really is about
the little things, and the little things that this friend has done for me
should not go unnoticed and should not go without thanks.
Kirby was the shoulder that I cried upon, the one who held
my hand just because he could, and the one that hugged me and encouraged me and
never expected a single thing in return. Kirby is responsible for me coming to
the realization that love truly does know no boundaries. Kirby was my best
friend.
I miss him…sometimes more than even I care to say, and I owe him thanks for all
that he’s done.
With a little luck and some finesse I think that I might get
to reconnect with Kirby soon enough and it doesn’t have to be for long, just
long enough for me to give the man his due. There was a time in my life that he
was an angel among men and I have wanted to tell him so for what seems like
forever and a day.
If I had been wise enough, or mature enough way back when
the number of my age still started with a 1, I would have, but in true form and
as the old saying goes, you just don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.