If I Died Today I'd Be The Happy Phantom
Tonight I was idling
watching the show The Class. It's a kooky show about a group of
friends who went to the same grade school and have reconnected after years
of not seeing each other. The Class started its first season in
September.
Over the summer, they
played commercials promoting the show and in those commercial they would show
the characters of the show as children frolicking in a playground and then show
the characters as adults playing in the same playground. The tagline was
"The first friends you've ever made are the best friends you'll ever
have."
I believe this.
It started me thinking
about yesterday -- it was like old times. Kimmy, Lauren and I were all
hanging out in my Mom's kitchen laughing about stories that we've told each
other 100s of times that will never get old for us, when all of a sudden Joe
Clancey popped in. And I began to think the nature of my friendships and
what they mean to me.
I have a stigma and I'm not
saying it's true, but it's how I feel: I care more about my friends then they
do about me. I have no proof to back this up, if it's even something that
could be proven, but I know that I have done and am willing to do much more for
them, if they needed me, then they are for me.
I love them all. I
can't help it. (Except Kimmy: I hate her.)
Yesterday, in my Mom's
kitchen, we talked plenty about the shore trip of 2003, when we first were
introduced to Steve Britt (who randomly showed up at Tiki Bob's on Friday),
Ryan crashed a van into a flower shop and Kimmy and I were so entirely fucked up we
thought Cap'n Crunch was trying to telepathically relay messages to us.
Then I started to think:
if I died tomorrow what would my last memories of these people, my friends,
be? What would I think if all I had were images in my head to take me to
the light? (This is what happens when I spend too much time by myself.
This bizarre thought pattern stems from a recent episode of Lost in
which Eko dies and his final thoughts are focused on a moment shared between
his brother and himself, but that's another blog entry).
In alphabetical order:
Danielle: If I died tomorrow and I thought of Danielle I
would think not of one memory in particular, but of many.
An example: I was young,
maybe 15 or so, and Lauren and I were temporarily made up after a huge
fight. It was the summer time and many of us had gathered at
Lauren's house to hang out. While everyone ran around like the immature
teenagers we were, having water fights and making a mess out of the house do
you want to know what Danielle and I were doing? Sitting in front of
the TV watching a marathon of The Real World and too
eagerly waiting for the first episode of the new season to air (I'm almost
certain it was the premiere of Seattle, but there is a tiny chance it may have
been Boston -- or even Hawaii?).
My admiration and
appreciation of Danielle runs very deep and this memory is something that has
always been cemented in my mind. This is sort of how I imagine Danielle
and myself: everyone else is running around doing something that is supposed to
be fun and the two of us turn our backs and do something completely dorky and
uncool (this has manifested in our adulthood as ALCOHOL).
Along with Lauren and Kimmy,
Danielle is somebody I couldn't imagine not having in my life and in my
memories.
Jean: Traveling to work on the R5 are my favorite
memories of Jean and myself -- they would all hit me at once and the feeling of
overwhelming companionship would wallop me and carry me away.
Those train trips were the
foundation on which Jean and I have built our relationship as they were the
first time that we connected with each other on a sober level. They were
sort of our rite of passage to see whether or not we had anything substantial
to maintain a friendship on.
And we did.
Joei: She was the only person there for me, for three
years, when nobody else was. When her and Dante went out I felt like it
was my first relationship too.
I miss her so much sometimes.
And all the wonderful
memories and secrets and beauty that comes off of her would will come to me in
my final moments and I will know that I loved her and, maybe, I'll know she
loved me as well.
Katie: This past summer, during the Wildwood vacation
with the Delawares, Katie was *hammered*. You know, her usual stealing
massive amounts of food from WaWa hammered. Walking back to our beach
house was Jean, Katie, Kimmy, Matt and myself. Katie kept complaining she
couldn't walk and I told her that I would give her a piggy back ride.
Matt told her the same thing and she kept screaming at him that she wanted me
to give her the piggy back ride. It's totally stupid -- and I'm not proud
of this -- but I felt so puffed up and giddy because she wanted me to give her
the piggy back ride. And I'll never forget that. Granted, I know
she was so, so drunk but that dumb, little incident of Katie picking me, her
gay, over her boyfriend -- well, that was the moment she became, officially, my
hag.
Sometimes it's the smallest events and tiniest memories that have the largest impacts.
Also, we both agreed to
stage dive in a stranger's front lawn bushes while seeking out a WaWa at one of
Danielle's random parties. We did jump into the bushes and knocked
them over.
Why wouldn't somebody want
to recall that when they were going out?
And who else would do that
besides Katie? Nobody! And that's why I love her.
Kimmy: Where to begin?
Wandering around Times
Square and Rockefeller Center in the wee morning hours, crashing in to each
other, like idiots; that same vacation talking for hours and hours in the hotel
lobby about boys, the future, our parents and each other.
Mardi Gras after Hurricane Katrina. Knowing in my gut that
everything that lead up to that moment was exactly the way it was planned and
knowing that the person I was with has had affected me in ways nobody else
could even possibly imagine.
Stumbling around her
parents house after a night of heavy drinking, making out with her
dog, Rusty, while telling her Mom I was going to Ireland because I am
going to FLLLYY there -- all while Kimmy told her Dad she drank nothing but
juice.
Trying to figure
out how to put the full spoons of Cap'n Crunch in our mouths, while
laughing so furiously that I struggled to breathe, while Ryan nodded
in approval in the background, "Yeeeeah, I caused
that."
I guess the question isn't
where do I begin; the question is where do I stop?
Lauren: My fondest memory of Lauren is on that shore trip
of 2003. I came in to wake her up from a nap and wound up rolling in bed
with her. I'll never forget as we cuddled and she leaned over and
whispered into my ear, "I love you," and, in that moment, I loved her,
too, in a way that I never had before and never have since. I'll never
forget the look on her face when she breathed out those words, like they
were An Oath, a beautiful poem.
I'd recall days with her
in 6th grade doing homework on my Mom's living floor, watching that stupid show
"I'm Telling!", a game show in which siblings competed
against each other.
Very possibly the best day
of my life was spent with Lauren and Kimmy on my 19th birthday at 3
a.m. somewhere on the shore of New Jersey, as my insane step-mother whizzed us
around different shore towns, visiting beaches and the ocean and the salty, sea
breeze air. We started out in Point Pleasant Beach and God only knows
where we wound up and with each stop on that spontaneous adventure I felt my
heart was losing pieces of itself that were, and still are, owned by Kimmy and
Lauren. That night was so special to me for so many different reasons and
the reason that matters the most is that I shared it with Lauren and
Kimmy. This was the night I realized I couldn't live without either one
of them.
Lee Ann: It's small and insignificant, probably, but every
time I see her I think of us deciding to be "pen pals" when I was in
7th grade, during the time that I was fighting with Lauren (our first of many,
many, many, many, many fights to come). I always had a special liking for
Lee Ann and wanted to be her friend, despite the fact that Lauren and I revving
up for war. So Lee Ann agreed to be my pen-pal and we wrote letters back
and forth to each other for a few months. I still have them in my pen-pal
collection somewhere buried in my Mom's house.
Every letter I received
from her was amazing to my little 7th grade self.
And if I died I'd remember
that...
Stacie: Stacie will always hold a special place in my
heart for two reasons and if I did die tomorrow these would be the things I'd
remember:
-- On the shore trip of
2003, she and I stuck away from the crowd of them for dinner one night and went
to a pizza shop not far from our hotel. It was my first real vacation
without adult supervision so I felt free and independent, but still a little
weirded out that I was stuck down the shore with those assholes. While at
the pizza shop, I can see in my mind the way the sun shone though the window,
it was starting to set and the sky was glowing that beautiful yellow glow that
only happens down the shore. I remember so vividly Stacie and I talking
about everything and nothing and dreams and tomorrow and yesterday and time and
now. I felt so connected to her in that moment. She and I shared so
much on that vacation, but that silly, little trip to the pizza shop is what
means the most to me.
-- After I was rid of
being sick in early 2004 and finally managed to get my voice back, up and
running, Stacie was the ONLY person who went out with me and celebrated.
Again, it was another night of talking (I'm started to notice a pattern here of
me really enjoying the quiet moments when I can curl up and share thoughts with
people), but it was more than that: it was Stacie celebrating my recovery, it
was us walking down 2nd Street with the group of serenading boys behind
us.
It was Stacie being my
friend.
It was something I'll
never forget.
Wynia: How could I ever possibly not think of
Wynia living with me for a year?
How could I forget her
tearing down my kitchen wall "by accident," driving me crazy day and
night, whispering into her phone at 3 a.m., "What's that,
CrazyCutie? What? You want to come slice me open and murder
me? Oh, you are so crazy, Cutie! You don't mean that,
BoyCrazyCutieHoneyBunches. Boy, shut up, Boy, you know you love me,
BoyCutieCrazy. I love you, Crazy!"
I moan and bitch a lot
about when she was living with me, but there were a lot of really amazing times
too.
I love her because she has
a way of making me feel better about myself, mostly because she praises me, and
also because her life is so, uh, unbalanced.
______________________________________________________
They say when you go out
your life flashes before your eyes. I hope that I get a flash of all
these things, and many more.
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