A little while back, I prefaced a post with a somewhat ominous allusion to being in the midst of a midlife crisis. As I mentioned in that preamble, it’s not the ridiculous scenario wherein I go buy myself a black leather jacket, get a tattoo and start skateboarding to broadcast that I still have my “edge.” For a start, I could never skateboard properly (as documented here), I’m far too wishy-washy to ever commit to a permanent tattoo and I already owned a cool black leather jacket. When I slip on the latter, however, it prompts snorts and giggles from my 15 year old, so that’s out, clearly.
For me, the crisis — I realize this is a strong word, but I’m at a loss of what else to call it — was brought about by two things. Firstly, there was the looming reality of my 13-year-old son departing for four weeks of summer camp for the first time (as discussed here and here). It wasn’t simply that I was worried about missing him or him being homesick — two things that have indeed taken place, although both manageably so — but rather that I was concerned with having to relinquish a certain degree of control and entrust a crucial responsibility onto people I do not know. As previously alluded, my son Oliver is on a strict regimen of meds that need to be properly and punctually administered. I’m used to doing that. Leaving that up to someone else to handle was something that cemented my brow in the fully furrowed position.
Here in early July, Oliver is now just short of halfway into his stay at camp. We've received one hastily penned missive from him at the end of his first week, which he composed while using the back of a frisbee for a writing surface. What we were able to decipher from that suggested he was feeling a little melancholy about the endeavor, but what doing his best. Since then, we’ve heard more recently from his group leader, and the picture was a good deal rosier. Oliver has purportedly branched out and his making the most of his experience. And much to my relief, he has been fully diligent about the meds. So far, so good.
The other thing that’s been really throwing me off my game, so to speak, is a bit more troubling. After suspecting something was up for some time now, I recently reached out to an essentially estranged former best friend of mine over email. I cannot say how or why we’d come to this impasse, but I reached a point, one evening a few weeks back, wherein I felt the air needed to be cleared, as I simply couldn’t remember anything I’d said or done or failed to say or do that might have put him off. As a result of whatever that was, this fairly pivotal figure in my life since childhood and I had basically fallen completely out of touch. I needed to know why.
Now, I fully realize that email is not the ideal medium wherein to hash out big issues like this. Subtle, conversational nuances are lost. Narratives can be misinterpreted. Cues can be missed. This all said, it seemed like the most direct means of getting the ball rolling.
As of this posting, the exchange in question is still basically unfurling. The good news is that he was happy and amenable to discussing this problem. The not-as-good news is that evidently he’d been under the impression for a very long period of time that I’d been rebuffing him. I assured him that there was never anything he’d said or done that would have prompted me to do that, and was frankly astonished that I’d been giving him that impression.
He was traveling at the time of this exchange, so we agreed to table the discussion until his return. I have high hopes that we’ll be able to get back on the good foot, so to speak, but again feel awful that so much time has gone by with us both feeling this encroaching distance, but neither of us acted on it. I hope to fully restore our friendship. Stay tuned on that front.
In any case, this scenario has been really messing with my head, especially the revelation that my friend had allegedly been under the misapprehension that I was the one giving off the cold shoulder. Do I invoke that vibe? At the risk of courting melodrama, for a figure so deeply involved in so many of my sensibility-defining experiences over the course of several decades to get such an unintentional impression has made me question a lot about myself. For someone you really think you know so well to suddenly misunderstand something … and then seemingly be more or less resigned to do nothing about it — I mean, what do I do with that?
Like I said, I’m trying to rescue the situation, but it left me feeling somewhat insecure about my relationships with other people. I was suddenly concerned that I was alienating all my old friends. I mean, what’s wrong with me if I can’t seem to keep in touch and in good standing with one of my best friends of all time?
As if on cue, I had three, seemingly random occurrences with other friends that more or less realigned me. My friend from high school, Rob B., unsolicitedly sent me the new Wonder Stuff live box set, prompted solely by the notion, I’m guessing, that we’d been discussing it, and I’d said something like “yeah, I’d love to have it, but probably won’t get it.” While a sprawling, multi-disc collection of punky pop from an aging British indie band might seem fairly banal, this gift could not have been more well timed, and I will cherish it for reasons well beyond the merits of the band in question.
Secondly, out of the proverbial blue, I fielded a text from my friend Sam in Portland, Oregon. Sam and I first met when we were both interning at SPIN in 1989. He’d moved to the West Coast some years ago and renounced Facebook, so we’d sadly fallen out of regular contact. Evidently, Sam had recently been rediscovering the joys of a band we both used to love called Pop Will Eat Itself — somewhat coincidentally from the same scene and era as The Wonder Stuff — and it made him think of me, so he reached out to see what was up and how my family is. Good friends do that.
Lastly, just this morning, my oldest-ever friend Keith sent me a photo via text. He lives in Colorado, now, but he and I have the sort of friendship wherein he’ll show up in New York at a moment’s notice — it’s almost ALWAYS just a moment’s notice — and we pick up RIGHT back where we’d left off. In any event, ever since we were little children, Keith and I were both obsessed with drawing. Our mothers would throw a couple of pads and a box of crayons on the floor like meat at a pair of wild dogs, and Keith and I would spend hours furiously scribbling monsters and superheroes and all sorts of ridiculous shit. This carried on well into our college years. We’d write back and forth to each other — remember when people did that? — and draw all over the letters and envelopes in much the same ridiculous manner we did when we were both 8 or 9 years old.
Today, apropos of nothing at all, Keith cut out a selection of images I’d illustrated letters to him with and send them to me, which pretty much stabs me right in the heart. I love my friends.
I am determined to restore proceedings with that other former friend, and be the best friend I can be to the ones I still have.
Reach out to the people you care about now and let them know how much they mean to you. Life is far too short to do otherwise.
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