Our Separate Ways

I'm a loner; there is no doubt about it. I don't spend much time around people. I don't become engulfed with gossip and I don't have many BEST friends if you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong though, because it's not that I don't enjoy others' company. It is just that I have become used to solitude. There was once a time though, that I had many good friends. I spent many wonderful hours with them having fun.

This time was a long time ago. When in childhood and into adolescence, everyday was a new and exciting adventure with my friends. Many summer afternoons were spent playing baseball and riding bikes through fields and woods. I was by no means the leader of our group of friends. I was also the most timid one. Before all our quests, I would question the possibility of danger, and was always the last one to agree with our mission. But even with possibilities I can by no means say that I did not enjoy my friendships. I very much relied on my friends to help me become accustomed to the "world" as I thought it was.

Any time of the year was a time to have fun. Spring was baseball season, and all of us played in the league. Summer was a time of swimming, camping, basketball, and biking. Fall was once again baseball season. Even in winter, snow gave us the oppurtunity for snowball fights, and sledding. We always had something to do, and if we couldn't, we would be inside playing videogames.

We did all the things that normal suburban children do. We never thought about our futures as we were in the "now" at that point. Once in a while we would look towards being in high school, and driving a car. Not much more was discussed concerning the changes we would experience. Whenever one of us discovered a new way to have fun, the rest of us followed in suit and did the same thing. One specific example of a fad that we followed, is of course, Pokemon cards. Even now I can't believe that we collected them, and even less that we spent so much of the precious little money on them. We did not, however, ever actually play the game involved with the cards. How then, could we have ever been so interested in these little paper cards? It's quite simple really: we could all be involved. Individual games were never fun, and being left out was always out of the question. I guess this is how such strong bonds of friendships are born, in that friends will change their lives to involve everybody.

I think that this is where I will take a lot of credit for my friendships. I was never physically fit, and always overweight during my childhood. I usuallly could not keep up with my slimmer compatriots, and I always thought that I was holding them back. My friends never even batted an eye. They never made fun of me, and never called me fat (as an insult). Of course, having the name Matt and being overweight automatically gave me the name "Fat Matt." I accepted this name knowing my friends didn't really mean it. Even though I couldn't contribute physically to my friendships, I was able to bring a new dimension to them. I am a good listener. On many occasions I had found my friends telling me many of their problems, and I was glad to do it. They trusted me, and I trusted them.

I remember the exact point that our friendships began to split apart. My friends discovered the skateboard. Not that I blame skateboarding, but the territory that came with it. As with all the other endeavors, I bought myself a skateboard. But, there was a problem. I could never grasp even the simplest moves. I was left behind. I still enjoyed the time I spent with my friends, but I had to do it watching on the sidelines.

Now my friends were discovering new people that were skateboarding, and spending less time with me. In school, I was continuing to progress and was becoming top of the class status while my other friends fell behind. The true final step that broke the rest of my child friendships happened when I was about 15 years old. My best friend who lived just down the street from me moved. He moved to a place that took some time to drive to, and could no longer be reached by walking or bike. At the time of the move, he and I were really excited because he lived near a pool we could go to. I was elated with the thought of new adventures in this entirely new arena, even if I didn't think of the situation in that way. I was happy for my friend because he had a bigger house, and plans for it that included me in the formula. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how horrible this move would be. For at least 3 to 4 months after the move I visited his new house often. I still had the naive belief that nothing would change. My friend had moved at the beggining of summer, and eventually September began along with school. After this the visits decreased and decreased. I could no longer take the trip to his house every weekend. He was moving on to friends in his new neighborhood. I no longer go to his house anymore, and we have barely spoken to each other in a whole year.

Even today, when I see my old friends that I spent so much of my life having fun, we act like we hardly know each other and are only aquaintances. Oh how we have gone our separate ways.