Have you ever visited an old house of yours before? I have. I've gone driving for driving's sake, and I've decided to visit my past along the way. A house with blue blinds, a backyard with pallets of bricks and cinderblocks, a house with a little white dog. Like the scent of a season or an old photograph, the sight of one of these houses hits you hard. So many emotions all at once. Yes, I used to live here. What was that like? And what was I like?
Today, though, was different. I was driving, hungry for a sandwich, when I took a sudden left down memory lane. But I wasn't going to my old house; I went to yours. I know you are glad to be gone; I hope you will always be proud of yourself for getting out of there after so much fighting. But as the faintest of memories carefully steered me down each twist in the road, I couldn't help but remember the road we had taken to each other so many summers past. I must've been 14 or 15, the same as you.
To be sure, there were flickers of light before. You had told me one summer that you "truthfully had never kept up with a friend as long as me," and already that sentiment existed so soon into our chronology. But this summer was different. My memory has failed me in part I'm ashamed to admit, but I think it may have been because we had broken new ground in the months leading up to it. I think we had both dropped a facade around the same time; our friendship was not merely building off of one another's comedy skills, but rather our friendship was fertile ground for sincerity and growth. This was something absent from my friendships up to this point; most personal relationships at this stage in life are more circumstantial than anything, and people are often taught by their peers to turn "it" off or suppress their emotions. You showed me a different way.
We kept up that summer almost entirely through text chat; had I known how close your house was, I probably would have walked there a few years sooner than I actually did. At a certain point, you must have decided that you would deconstruct whatever walls I had built around myself; of course, I did not protest your efforts. This was the summer of second chances, before that benchmark seemed so distant. Slowly we talked more about real life. You were afraid of changing schools again; I was afraid of staying at the same school. I was worried about failing exams among so many other things, but with you I found satisfaction in the escape. We could and would talk about almost anything, but these conversations would gravitate toward more and more serious subject matters. I remember sharing in another person's trauma for the first time. So I told you mine -- all the awful things that I had done, and all the terrible things that had happened to me, typically as a result of the former. You were patient, and you listened, even when I'm sure I surprised you. Always, and forever, you listened and listened well.
But perhaps most importantly, you were an active agent that summer. You did not simply listen to me (not a small task at all, of course), but rather you provided your confident guidance. And when I seemed to really and truly be on the verge of doing something stupid, you guided me back to the narrow road; and when I had already been walking a dangerous path, you spared no criticism, and your castigation knocked some sense into me. Over and over, time and time again, you made me a better person. This trend was not unique to our first summer in this stage of our friendship, but it certainly began here. We cultivated a sincere knowledge of the other person.
Something else that I think helped was that you indirectly provided me with opportunities to demonstrate my own propensity for good. Allow me to illustrate with one example. Your school had given you an Apple laptop, but one day it began to demonstrate intermittent behavior. Through text you off-handedly mentioned these problems, but although you never directly mentioned your feelings, I could feel your frusturation. So off I went: tech forum to tech forum, the fourth page of Google, YouTube tech tutorials, you name it -- I was set on fixing your problem. Even more, I told you I would fix your problem. For all intents and purposes, I looked you in the eye and told you that everything would be okay. Internally, I think I had always known I could care about other people, but never before had I been so foreward about it. I've held onto that feeling, but it started here. When you told me this was a sweet gesture several years after the fact, I remembered the feeling of salvation. It was as though I had participated in the world for the very first time; I had finally make a positive difference in someone else's life.
Oh, salvation. I suppose that began here as well. In one's death, I found life. Happening in concurrence throughout this summer was the beginning of a spiritual journey, perhaps analogous to my then-new understanding of good, evil, and my place in the mix. I don't recall getting into the details with you as this was happening, at least not initially, but you were there for me all the same. Behind the scenes, I would look to you as an example in the faith. I prayed deeply for you, knowing you were doing the same. When I boarded my first flight that year, I took two things on board: my pocket Psalms and a picture you had drawn of us. I think I brought the former to comfort me but the latter to guide me, perhaps on the chance that the plane had landed in a different reality. I saw you in my fever dreams.
Closing my eyes, it all comes back to me. A grainy cup of Keurig coffee every morning (or 2 PM, if I had stayed up all night talking to you). The orange glow of the July sun preciously fixed into the sky beyond my curtains. These memories are always dusky hues of orange when I recall them; the summertime warmth evokes a feeling of newfound adolescence. I was never lonely in the midday sun, excluding the long periods where I'd wait for your first message every so often.
Truly, I do not want to give the impression that this summer was the apex of our friendship; it grew and grew over the years that followed. However, this summer was what catalyzed the years to come. Whenever we were feeling reflective, this summer would always appear in our conversations ("Do you remember when...?"). It was impossible to avoid the subject. It is impossible to avoid thinking about it.
Time marched on. It may have been the spring afterward that I finally walked to your house all alone in the dark with only some vague since of direction. Somehow, after an hour, I made it, and you were there, standing in the light. From the shadows I emerged, hungry, and finally we could physically gather in a brief intersection of time and space. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat... How strange that our immaterial friendship could persist beyond the absence of the physical but not time's own dilligent march.
And time would march on indeed. Our friendship did not survive the determined pace of time, and we both felt it growing weaker. In some ways, I continued to grow so that I could become more like you; I may have even become a "you" to other people, and it is in this humble honor that I am delighted. But contrariwise, I also think I began to lose touch with the way. There were times I fell off of this narrow road, times where I rejected your hand. Life without you was hard, and without your guidance I made more than my fair share of mistakes, even in your presence. But somehow, your voice would come back to me, and I would remember the way. The average trend here, even throughout all of the years considered, I think is positive. Like those first cups of coffee I had that summer, there are equal parts bitter and sweet, but the sweet may just as easily stand out all the same.
You're gone now, and you're happy. I think I am happy, too. I have plenty to be happy about, and I think I have my own way now. I sometimes wonder what you'd think of me now should I ever tell you my story. Would you listen like you used to? Would you silently understand what I've been through? Or would these thoughts, just as they did in that long orange summer, only occur to me after the fact, for I'd be too busy living in the rush of it all to ponder such silly things. I will always miss our friendship, but I value the memories regardless of the present estrangement. I still see myself, walking nervously in the arborous dark that one evening, toward a light held in total faith up ahead. I might be walking that same path now, looking desperately for signs of light, but I know that it's there, somewhere up above.
I tried to drive to your old house today, but my memories could only take me so far. I think I made it to the right street, but I could no longer pick out your house among the dozens. I suffered in a solemn silence for a moment, and then I just sat alone and accepting in the cool Florida heat. I thought of friendship and honor, of promises and reconciliation, and I dreamed of summer. And as the orange glow of sunset yielded to a faint twilight, I rode elsewhere.