Open Doors

I woke up on July 2nd to my brother, Dave, in my room. I thought he was because my parents wanted me to do something and had sent him to wake me up. He just outright told me that my best friends mother had died the night before. I thought he was joking at first and just saying something to catch my attention so that I would wake up. After looking at his face, I knew he was serious.

This woman, Alice, was someone I had known since I was three. She was the first major death I experienced. My grandfathers had both died, but I was young at the time and they weren't such a large part of my life. She was the first death I experienced since I started on the road to becoming an adult. (I was 18 at the time.)

I spent a lot of time with Tom and his family in the weeks after she died and worked hard to be the rock for my friends. I made a point to be the person they could come to. The person they could rely on. I didn't allow myself to feel much grief during those weeks. Tom was in upstate NY at the time and was coming back that morning, so I made a point to go and see his old house so that I didn't break down when I saw him. I stood there for about 30 minutes reliving memories and stoically crying. I went to college without dealing with much of the grief I felt over losing her.

While suppressing all my emotions and trying to deny what had happened in my head, I swung around every time I heard a door open. I wanted it be a joke. I was waiting for her to come through the door and say, "Gotcha!" While trying to actually deal with my emotions and get on with my life, I realized that I felt the same way about my grandfathers. I wished they would come back into my life so that I could get to know them.

For me a judge of whether or not someone was important in my life is this idea. If someone is important in my life, then I'll want them to come through some door. I'll want them to walk back into my life. This is something that lives in my head every day. I always want just a little more time with those that have died. So, these days, every time a door opens, I wish with all my heart that someone important in my life who has died will walk through it.

Brendan

I met Tom when we were in daycare. We were three years old. I only have one memory of Brendan from that time. I remember that another kid was yelling for the teacher because he had cursed. I know that I must have known him because it was a pretty small school, but that's the only definite memory I have where he's a player.

I always mark the real beginning of our friendship at his fourth birthday party. I remember going to that. I know that's where our parents met and discovered that they lived close to one another and had sons who were the same age. Tom and I both have brothers who are three years older than we are. My brother is named Dave and his brother is Jeff.

My mom said the reason we all started hanging out was because my mom (who's a teacher) had off during the summer and was home. This meant that Tom and Jeff could come over and she could watch them while their parents were working. It was during that time that we paired off into best friends. We would also always be at each others houses. We would hang at ones family's house, sleep over, then go over to the other family's house during the day and sleep over then our family's would force us to return to our rightful houses for a night. We would just start the process over the next day. Spending a lot of time at each other's houses meant that we became close with the other's family. We did this basically until we were around ten or a little older.

As Tom and I grew up, we would see less of one each other. Part of it was school. During summer we would see each other pretty much every day, but during school we only had time on weekends. Then school became more and more demanding, and we had even less time during the weekend. Our social scenes also pulled us apart. We both had our circles at school and the other was accepted within those circles, but we weren't necessarily included in the other's circles. We would still see one another, but we weren't as close as we once were. We had other friends who we would spend more time with.

It wasn't until we started having sleep overs again that we really reconnected. That was when we discovered we both had an interest in sex. We would stay up until all hours of the night talking about what we wanted to try and what we liked about girls and how far we had gone. We designed this whole world based solely around the idea of us getting laid. As a tween, it would have been amazing to live in that world. This became the basis for our friendship. We would talk about other things besides sex, but that was the main part. We also started mixing our social circles. I started going over when he had friends over, he started coming to movie nights I'd host for my friends. We started courting the other's female friends. We were closer than we had ever been.

Sometime between eigth and tenth grades, we both went through periods of depression. Neither of us knew about the other at the time. It was only after we were both feeling happier that we told the other. We realized that we were each safe havens. We felt happier in each others company. The sadness and bad feelings in our lives went away when we were with each other. It was an escape.

Where to go from here is hard for me. There are little things like competing for girls, learning about the pure mechanics of sex, figuring out school and life in general as teenagers. We were each other's sounding boards and confidants. We would have nice conversations with each other's families. It was during this time that I came to consider Tom's family as my second family. Had something ever happened to my parents, I was supposed to go and live with my one of my mom's sisters and their families either Connecticut or D.C. I wouldn't have wanted to go. I would have asked to stay with Brendan's family until I was at least 18.

Tom is more to me than a friend. I'm taking a page out of Kevin Smith's book when I say this, but he's my hetero life-mate. He is the one person in the world I would do anything for. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't met him or if he died and I don't like it. Life doesn't seem as bright without him in it. This really doesn't capture my friendship with him. There'll be more stories.

Friends

Amongst my friends, I'm the guy people turn to when they need something. People call me for rides at 1:30 in the morning. My friends know that if they're feeling bad in the middle of the day and need someone to talk to, they can call me and I'll pick up no matter what I'm doing. If a friend is having trouble with his or her family, he or she knows that my house can be a haven.

It's not just the fact that I'm willing to help out my friends. I think part of the reason they call me is that my parents trust me. If I need to pick someone up late at night, I just need to tell my parents that I'm going out to pick someone up and they'll be ok with it. They'll tell me to be careful and might express their displeasure, but they understand that if I don't go, my friends will probably have to take a cab or public transit and they would prefer my friends be safe with me. My parents also respect our boundaries. The next time they see that friend, my parents might ask them how they've been since then or how the drive was, but they won't interrogate them. My parents trust in the fact that I know what I'm doing and that I'll do the right thing.

While helping my friends is something that I want to do, it's also something I consider my duty as a friend. My best friend's mother died two summers ago. My best friend has been my best friend since we were 3. That's close to 17 years now. We both have older brothers who are also best friends and have been for just as long. Our families are very closely connected (more on that in another post) and his family is my second family. So, when his mother died, I spent about a week at his house. I would wake up and go over and not leave until at least dinner. During that time, his extended family got to know me and who I am in his life. Toward the end of the week, some of them started thanking me, which would always give me pause. I would eventually answer that there was nowhere else I'd rather be, but in the back of my head, I was thinking, "Where else would I be?" I had never considered the idea that I had another option. It was true that there was nowhere else I'd rather be, but I thought of it as I had to be there.

I think that a lot of my thinking on this subject comes from reading comics as a kid. (I love comics and probably always will. Anyone who thinks that they're just for kids is an idiot and hasn't read the right ones.) In these stories, the heroes would risk their lives for one person. They would turn their backs to the villains who were trying to kill them to make sure no one got hurt. They would lay everything on the line because they knew that they could help and make a difference. While I took this idea to heart, I don't have superpowers. I can't fly around fifty stories in the air and someone to save the city. I can't go on patrol and stop every crime I see, but I can help my friends. I can make sure that they know I'm there for them no matter what. I can make sure that they know that I will do everything in my power to help them, make them happy and make a difference in their lives.

Me

I'm never really sure how to describe myself. There's no real easy way to describe me. I have no central theme. I like to make rants in my head, but they always come out better when I write them out. So, This is basically my place to rant. It's where I'll put my ideas down.