January 21, 2004

Rise and Fall of Jared's Social Interactions, Volume 2

So, picking up where I left off last time. I was in bad shape, but I was too content (after plenty of time to stabilize) to notice.

Then, about halfway through 8th grade, a new family moved to Guatemala: the Wingers. They had been at my home church in Lubbock when I was an infant, our parents were great friends, and they had a son, Andy, who was a little older than I, a son, Joe, who was the same age as Brett, and a daughter, Elizabeth, the same age as Micah.

Brief digression: Andy and his dad had visited Guatemala . . . I think about a year before. I went with my dad to the airport to pick them up, and we were both told what great friends we had been when we were about a year old. *rolls eyes* (Refer to my comment on Wilson's post . . . this sort of thing isn't an isolated incident.) I remember very clearly that we were both already in the car as the luggage was loaded, and in the few seconds between the slamming down of the back door and both men climbing into the front, one of us said (still staring straight ahead), "I don't remember you at all." *chuckle* "I don't remember you either." It was the beginning of a horrible few days, because somehow we almost immediately developed a seething animosity towards each other. He was insulting, I was whiny. He was rude, and I was annoying. Looking back on it now, I suspect that this is what was going on . . . Andy was in the midst of experiencing middle school (socially), I was not. Everybody knows how middle school is . . . it sucks. You insult and put everyone down ruthlessly and everyone either grows a thick skin, or spends their whole life in tears. He probably didn't mean much of anything that he said to me, but I took it all very personally . . . So it was bad.

Well, back on track, when they came down to live we went to airport to meet them again. It's the funniest thing ever to think about now. I can still see our parents talking and laughing as the children huddled together behind the adults and eyed each other warily, as if the other group were a pack of starving wolves. They had a good reason, having just moved to another country. I felt that I had a particularly good reason, remembering my last encounter with Andy.

Well, that was over soon, and I didn't see them again until Thanksgiving. They came to stay with us for three days. Apprehensive doesn't tell the half of what I was. But I was determined to make some kind of effort . . . with my parents rather "strong" encouragement, of course. By Thursday evening, I believe, we were sitting in front of a computer together. I had just discovered the Internet less than six months before . . . (finding Amazon.com was like striking oil in my backyard) . . . and we were surfing after playing a computer game. I think he looked up something that had to do with Quake III, and he was telling me about it, when his little brother walked in. Joe was very quiet, and didn't stay long. When we left a few minutes later, Andy's dad was waiting and I believe he got a tongue-lashing for doing something related to that game. "Ah," thinks I to myself. "Here's someone else related to a pesky tattle-tale."

I don't think three or four months had passed before one of us was at the other's house every single Friday night, and any other time we could manage. It was a probably less than a year later that we started interacting by phone every day, sometimes three or four times a day. I had been absolutely starving for a good friend, and I hadn't even known it until one showed up.

That was a good three years . . . a really good three years. But that was the length of time they had come for, and they moved back to Colorado Springs as I was finishing 10th grade. That wasn't pleasant. I was left in exactly the same position as before Andy had arrived, only this time I knew just exactly how much I wanted a friend around. So Jared went back inside, and decided he wouldn't be coming back out anymore.

However, at the same time, I wasn't just going to let this particular friendship get away. I had before, with my friends from elementary. There were token efforts at writing that faded within a few weeks . . . That wasn't going to happen this time. And it didn't. For the two years I had left before coming here for college, we spoke by telephone almost every two weeks, sometimes more. We e-mailed steadily . . . I wasn't as good about it as he was, but I never have been. There were periods of an e-mail or two every single day . . . sometimes that would fade to one in a week, but it always came back up again. If I went so long without e-mailing that I didn't want to write everything down, I'd just call and fill him in, and vice-versa. The funny thing is, I've actually been blogging since 11th grade . . . Andy was just the only one reading my blog all that time.

I've had fun with this entry, because even though my audience has grown, he's still gonna read it.

Prepare for the final volume soon . . .

Posted by Jared at January 21, 2004 04:01 PM | TrackBack