Wanna hear something weird?
Sometimes, well, maybe twice so far…I wake up in the middle of the night because my right hand is moving. It’s not just moving, it’s typing something, tapping against my leg. I hear the words of the story in my mind but by the time I register what is going on, it goes away and I’m laying there thinking, “That was weird.”
Anyway, I just had another weird occurrence. My children’s father called me and asked me to pick the boys up because he was running late on the way home. I picked them up, took them for icecream and then we headed for campus so that I could be on time to my class. As we waited for him to meet us on campus, my son had to pee so he peed behind a tree.
When my children’s father pulled up he had one of his college buddies with him. Seeing him made my heart smile, except, it was still weird because we used to be friends too. Sometimes I think about college and laugh but at the same time I want to cry because my relationship with my children’s father began when I was just 19 and ended when I was 23. That was basically my whole college experience, including the birth of two babies.
My friends in college were his friends. We all hung out together, smoking out, talking about our futures, enjoying each other. I really thought that we were all friends. I loved them and I’m pretty sure they loved me too.
But now, I never speak to any of them. They were his friends first. Now he has a girl and I’m sure they’re friends with her. I’m also certain that he has made up so many wild lies about me and who I am and what I’m about, to make himself look better. But if any of those people from my college days remembered carefully who they themselves knew me to be, they’d know he was lieing.
It’s weird because in my heart I still love them but I know we’ll never have what we had. And for me that’s tough cuz, no matter what me and my friends go through, even if we do stop speaking for a while, I never lose that love for them. Never.
So I miss them. I hear they’re doing well. Jason and his wife and daughter. Rick and his wife and child, Mike and his wife, Mike O. and Twiggy and n’em. I hear Yvette got married and is prosperous.
The only friend I hung onto from that group was Kenya. I don’t know how that really happened because she and I weren’t even close when we were all a clique. Well, Mike O. and I still chat regularly. He says he’ll always be my friend.
Sometimes I wish I could have my friends back. They were all genuinely good people. Genuinely. At the same time, I don’t keep in touch with them, well, the reason used to be that I wasn’t proud of myself and therefore didn’t want to bore people with the struggle updates. So I distanced myself from everyone, hoping they’d forget about me.
They don’t. They still find me, one way or another.
And I smile everytime I read a line, or see a smile from those old loves.
Wondering if they know just how much I miss them and those lazy, smoke filled days of debate, music and daydreaming about our bright futures set to the backdrop of a quaint college town in north central florida.