1 post tagged “grieving”
It's rare that news comes to me from my hometown that doesn't involve death.
It slowed for a while after I graduated college.
I was lulled into a false psychological comfort zone lately thinking that I had decades before the obits came again.
Then this past week another part of my history passed from ever being part of the future.
My mind has been working on it in the background as I've moved through the past two days.
He wasn't close in that way that family or friends are.
But we had shared history.
He was somebody I knew from before things moved fast and changed constantly.
He was from the awkward formative years, before identity and self-confidence had been forged and tested.
We hadn't crossed paths in a decade, but he wasn't one of those people that you had to work at maintaining a relationship with.
If we'd seen each other last week, even after all that time, we could have smiled and talked and brought each other current in minutes.
It was comforting knowing that he was out there.
Now, one less face to look for should I ever revisit the hometown.
One more reason to never go back.
Could be I even feel a little guilt for not being a closer friend when I had the chance.
Have I come this far by abandoning those like him that would have held me to a place I wanted to flee?
Why did I always want to get out? Why was it never enough for me?
I envy him for being able to find his place without leaving.
He was able to become one with the place that I always chaffed against.
I almost wish I could have stayed.
But then I recount what I've seen since. What I've experienced. Who I've met and been enriched by.
These are things that I would have always wondered about, but never tasted had I stayed.
This is the price paid for the travels and sights.
I will always be looking to something else that I've never seen before; always moving on and exploring, trying something new.
Still, every once in a while, I will be melancholy and somber and wish that I could have been happy staying and envious of those who were able to.
Then something will catch my eye, I'll smirk, and be awash in the sensation of learning something I didn't even know that I didn't know before.
Anyway, thanks for that first day at a new school in fifth grade Rob. I did well to know you.
