Some guy, somewhere, has some pretty big boots to fill.
We are all replaceable aren't we? Whether through the fault of movies, books, music, or just the need to be more important than we may actually be...we all hope that we are irreplaceable to the people we care about. Very few relationships in life last. Best friends, first loves...they always seem like it's going to last.
I can't count how many times I have looked at the people around me and thought to myself...these are the people, the friends, the relationships that will last me through my life. Today, I don't keep in touch with my best friends from high school...aside from Doug. The guys with whom I spent six years goofing off in locker rooms, from seventh grade to graduation, walking out onto the big field on a friday night, sweating even when we were just sophomores and most likely wouldn't get to play much more than a series or two...and the guys who I hugged and cried with in the cold at Thomas Worthington when that great ride ended three years later.
That was the last time I saw my first real love as well. We had broken up a few months earlier, and I had not yet gotten over my first real broken heart. But she hugged me through my soaked pads, kissed my cheek, and told me not to cry. I thought she was the one...she thought I was way too intense. She was right, but when I look back, it was worth it. I moped around for a year after her. Ran away to a school I shouldn't have even been interested in, trying to distance myself from Columbus, where there was still some lingering hurt left over. We never did much more than talk here and there after that night. Now, I have no idea what I was so upset about. I hear she's married now...or engaged...or something happy like that. Pretty sure to an Air Force guy...gag me.
When it stopped hurting, I don't really remember. Those feelings of heartbreak and abandonment were erased through bong hits and beer. My best friend was my roomate, Matt, and we partied like we didn't have class (we never went anyways), and we were the guys who everyone wanted to know where we were going, what we were up to. It was gratifying, it was great, and I don't regret any of it. I made friends there who I thought I would be friends with forever. I don't even remember most of their names now. I haven't talked to Matt in over three years. I hear he's married, or engaged, and settling into a nice suburban life. How boring.
When I think of the friends and girlfriends I've ditched throughout the years, I realize how easily I move on from things and people. I've always seemed to enjoy the weather of leavetaking. Whether it's being good on the rebound, complete detatchment, or just what everyone else does...doesn't really matter in the long run. Some guy, somewhere, has some pretty big boots to fill. Does he? Everyone has always seemed to do just fine without me. In fact, they all seem to radically accelerate their lives afterwards. Maybe I'm the guy who inspires you to get a move on with your life...how lucky am I?
But if we all patch up, move on, and enter new friendships and phases of life...how can we ever feel truly important to eachother? I know old friends who hear something about me probably react the same way I do when I hear about them...I shrug, and say good or bad for them, and continue with what I was doing. The fact that he and I once planned on living next door to eachother, putting our kids in the same little leagues, and marrying our sons and daughters off to eachother...that doesn't really matter anymore. No more than the fact that when I was seventeen, I made a promise to love a girl forever and planned to make babies for years on end. God how terrifying would that be? I definitely have some sort of guardian angel. But what if we don't move on? What if it's impossible? That no matter what we do, where we go, what we pursue...there's always that nagging voice in the back of our heads, or that sinking feeling in your heart, that's telling you this time...your shoes just won't ever be filled again. I've had that before. I think I'll have it again. I know I have it now with Gena...there will never be another for me, and I know that I recieve the same promise in return. I think that there are people in my life that will be there forever. Maybe I'll be right this time. Maybe not. At least I'll have my Genaveve.
He knew her and so himself, for in truth he had never known himself. And she knew him and so herself, for although she had always known herself she had never been able to recognize it until now.
-Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees
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