Growing Apart

Isn't it weird how you can be so close to someone, then just grow apart?

Kat posted this comment regarding my post about a friend of mine who died. It got me to thinking about all of the people that at one time were very important in my life but then suddenly was no longer there.

I think a lot of it has to do with distance, there are people who were my best friends in High School, we did everything together…but then I moved away, and I haven’t spoken to them in 15 years.

Moving makes it very difficult to keep in constant touch with someone. As I look back over the years there have always been people that were either best friends or buddies someone that had an influence in my life that I no longer talk with.

Some of those are because of distance or moving away, losing contact, some others are because I chose to dissolve the relationship, whatever the reason it’s always difficult.

I sometimes wonder what ever happened to some of those people, what are they doing, how are they doing, did they ever turn things around, did they advance to a wonderful position in life or the opposite?

A few times over the years I’ve attempted to get back in touch with a few of these people:

J – was my best friend when I lived in Columbus, OH. I met him when I worked at an Answering Service that was run by the people he lived with. We were best friends. He ended up meeting a guy through the personal ads in the back of Bear Magazine and moved to Atlanta, GA. He got a job with a software company and got me a job there, I moved to Atlanta and we lived in an apartment together. Everything was great until he got addicted to Crystal Meth, now I know this is all over the news now, but this was 93/94 over a decade ago. At the time I had no idea what was going on, the Internet was just getting into full play and we would come home from work and he would be on the internet ALL night, until we would get up for work the next morning. He eventually got fired from his job (even though they offered to send him to rehab – he wouldn’t admit he had a problem), totaled his car and moved out. Around 1999 or so, we had a brief email exchange where he told me he moved back to Columbus and his Grandmother had passed away (she was the only person in the world who truly loved him), after that I never heard from him again.

R – was a person I was friends with when I lived in Columbus. He moved to Florida, and I moved to Atlanta. Somewhere around 1995 or so I get this phone call “I’m in Atlanta can I come stay with you.” Little did I know that he literally meant “stay” with me, he had sold all of his belongings, etc and needed a place to live. He slept on our couch for about a month before it was too much and we kicked him out to find his own place/job, etc. About 6 months ago I came across his phone number, I called, it was still his number. We talked for a little bit, he told me how when we kicked him out he ended up living in his car, he then went on to say that he was in a loveless relationship (for the last 7 years) and he didn’t know what to do. He said “Maybe I’ll come up to Chicago.” At which point I curtly said, “Don’t show up on my doorstep and don’t bring a lot of luggage.” We exchanged email addresses, I sent him one, he sent me back one saying “call me.” We’ve not been in touch.

C – was the last RG (Real Girl) I had in my life. This was way back in 92/93 when I lived in Columbus. We met when I was working as a waiter in a Country Club. We actually lived together for about 6 months, and we even slept in the same bed together, but we were girlfriends. The last I heard from Carol she had met a man (in his 60’s) and they were getting married. She was happy and crazy.

I totally believe that we meet people for certain reasons in our life, there are no coincidences, everything happens for a reason. You either need to teach someone something or they need to teach you something, but once that lesson has been learned I think it’s easy to let go.

Now perhaps the people that we’re really long term friends with are just dense and it’s taking us a while to learn something/teach something from/to them.