I guess we're just older now

So I met up with R., an old friend from High School today who I haven’t see in years. We used to go out. We were good friends. He went to the Navy shortly after he graduated from High School and has been all over the place. He’s working for a big fitness company in Jersey right now and is getting married this month.

There was nothing at all bad about my relationship with R. Everything with R. was comfortable and glowy. It was lush and soft. He was one of the only guys I ever went out with in High School who paid for everything all the time. He had wads of cash in his underwear drawer because he worked after school and really knew how to save his money. It was never an issue for him. He did love me. He still does, and I love him too. All the memories I have of us together are all warm and sweet and easy. So why didn’t it last? Well, for the same reason none of those relationships lasted with me. I always thought there would be something better or just as good around the corner. I thought that kind of specialness was always going to be around.

R. and I could walk along the promenade in Brooklyn together and watch sunsets, go to Central Park and lie on the rocks and talk. I was the freak and he was the more conservative, reserved one, but I think he liked my freakiness and I liked that he was conservative because it felt more naughty when I felt like I was corrupting him. But I think I craved more danger, more intensity, more aggression or something. I guess I felt like happiness wasn’t worth as much if I wasn’t suffering or tortured somehow. That was my immaturity talking. Back then everything was for my writing, for my journals. I wanted to experience as much as possible so that I could write about it.

It was great hanging out with him. We had a great conversation about marriage, relationships, commitment, fidelity and what they mean to each of us. It’s so trippy that we’re both engaged. God! We were children together! So young! And I guess we still are, but it’s a different kind of young. There’s so much to be responsible for, to take into account and be sensitive to. And it’s really good to be able to share with someone who knew you way back when and still likes you, despite all the mess.