Old Friends.

So, I just got off the phone with an old friend. Not the kind of old friend with whom you could comfortably share deep-belly, tear-jerking laughs about the time James and Michael tried to experiment with Axe, some shaving cream, Purell, and a lit match, only to end up with a lack of eyebrows, and, in David's case, eyelashes altogether...or the kind of old friend that has stayed looking, speaking, and acting exactly the same for all those years you knew him/her, or the kind you could just sit in silence with after not speaking to each other for years, and still be comforted by the fact that you are sitting next to each other, even without words.

No, it was the kind of old friend with whom much time and intimacy and awkwardness and hurt was shared. The kind of old friend that you wanted to just quit, but couldn't quite let go, a scab you want to pick at, but won't because you know it would leave a scar. An old friend I tried to rescue from under a rock, but failed. Do you know what kind I'm talking about?

Anyway, the conversation was a little awkward. He changed, it would seem. No longer patient with my childish antics and no longer comfortable with my pensive silences. A lot of the old spark we used to have in our once daily conversations was gone. The well was dry.

Interestingly enough, I didn't mind this time. A couple of months ago, it would have frustrated and angered me. Why on earth did such a wonderful relationship end? How could two people share so many silences in comfort, so many deep-belly laughs, and egotistical smirking glances at each other on the train, because we thought (and knew) we were better than the rest; how could we be silent now because speaking was uncomfortable?

But, I am not angry. I think it's a sign that I have let go. There will be a scar. But, really, it's not all too bad. Once in a while, I'll reacquaint myself with it and think about what happened, and chuckle. It was a good time. There were many good times. And I'm a better person for it. We will meet up occasionally, and it will be okay, a little awkward, a bit of longing for the days we sat in the Union Square train station for hours on end, comforted by the stability of our relationship in so hectic a scene, and a bit of trying to fill in an exponentially increasing void. But, for some reason. It is all right.

There are people in our lives like that. It reminds us all the more how precious old friendships are. Like the folder from kindergarten you still keep in your chest of personal belongings, filled with the scribbles of a five-year-old still building the muscles and coordination necessary for legible penmanship. And drawings that looked absolutely dreadful, but you thought were beautiful because the grownups told you they were. And you softly chuckle. Then you start to reminisce and wonder what would have happened if you had told Tommy you had a crush on him, or regret that you pushed poor little Emily off the swings because she broke your favorite crayon. Cerulean blue.

You served detention for about maybe half an hour, and you cried because you heard the shouts of the other kids on the courtyard playing in the sun, and you knew you had done something wrong. Childhood is cruel.

But precious. And so are memories. And so are old friends...

And So, I have made a Resolution. This relationship will be what it will be. And it will sit in my chest of personal belongings, and I will take it out from time to time and look at it, perhaps even chuckle a little, because even though it looks absolutely dreadful, I'm the grownup now.

And I think it's beautiful.