RealityRamblings

That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last and last. But there was one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening. Right then…and every moment afterwards. Look, there. Now. Now. Now.

What if our “forever” ends too soon? That question, along with numerous other ones, was asked in January with a few of my former best friends. We decided that there was so much we wanted to change about our lives, so much we wanted to accomplish and so much that we wanted to be that we needed to set a goal. This goal was a bucket list. It consisted of 150 “odds and ends” that we decided needed to be accomplished by the end of our senior year. We laughed while creating it, eating popcorn and debating which movie to watch. Some of the things listed were absolutely absurd, but the majority of them were completely reachable if we only worked just a little bit harder at what we wanted. They ranged from buying an easy bake oven to losing “it”. Honest to God, I believe that these 150 items were a checklist at finally living. Living our lives how we wanted to with no regard for the rules that life had selfishly imposed on us. We were so determined to go beyond the boundaries of our actual life that we picked things to accomplish that were supposed to be absurd. To me, that list defined our friendship, along with the smaller tidbits that made us who we were.

I reached out to them last night, telling them that I found our bucket list. It seems to me that it brought us somewhat back to an understanding that even though our friendship didn’t weather the storm, they were still there. Call me crazy, but I’m finally starting again to believe that there is always a small ounce of goodness in someone. Regardless of the past and not looking towards the future, they, in that moment in time, came back. We acknowledged we didn’t even remember why it all happened. Just that it simply ended. Yes, that reasoning won’t take back all the tears that fell, all the days spent home from school attempting to sleep off my pain or even the numerous visits to Dr. Lang, but somehow it gave me closure on such a difficult time in my life. Our brilliant friendship was like the sun. It set and we were over, but as it rose we are slowly recognizing each other as people we want on our side when the world goes against us. I’d rather have you girls by my side than against me. After all we’ve been through, I think it’d break me.

And for the record, let’s try the 150 again. Not necessarily together, but on our own. Let’s see what we can do before June 2011. I’ll unpin it from behind the numerous pictures and memories on my bulletin board in June.

Here’s to a beautiful senior year.