Frienads

“I pushed you cos I love you guys, I didn’t realize you weren’t having fun”

-Ben Folds Five

In many ways I am a horrible friend. This is a sin I live with every day and yet there is nothing in the world that I cherish more than those that I am privileged enough to esteem with the title of “friend”. I’ve never flattered myself to title any of you as my best friend and this could be because I’ve never pulled a punch when I would label any one of you as family.

I pray, dear reader, that the rest of you are as blest as I am to surround yourself with the absolute cream of the crop when it comes to individuals that, perhaps, are not like minded, perhaps are not the most blunt edged but trust you.

I have friends that would lie down in the street for me because I asked them to; I have friends that pull me out of traffic when I seek to sacrifice myself to an oncoming semi on a principle.

I am not a sentimental man nor am I am the sort of person that is quick to recognize an action with gratitude; and for this, again, I am a horrible friend. I commit, daily, my sense of ingratitude. I fail to answer phone calls, I prize the time that I come home to an empty house dearly and dedicate myself too much to it.

But my thanks is given to those of you that are there at those perfect moments. The moments, that somebody, much more educated in the world than I, described as those snippets of life where there is nowhere else in the world that you would rather be; those moments that you would go back to if you could.

Most people would have a difficult time describing the past paragraph. Some would appreciate their friends in the past, in times that they’ve had together. Some would appreciate their friends because of the experiences that they plan to have together. To me it’s both, but it’s also the potential; and not necessarily to have one of those incredible nights. Sometimes, like tonight, you just get me full blown loaded and we sit and talk.

Those moments. Those nights that you meet at a bar but leave after a beer and end up making pizza. Those that you dream up futures with on pads of paper. Those that go with you around Europe, than pass out on a dock in Switzerland, trying to keep watch until the next train arrives and while you secretly plot their death (Jord, it would’ve been quick and easy, you would’ve loved it). Those people arrange ways that they can come over to your house for a moment of a refuge and a video game. The one that spends their life trying to find out all about you, but actually knows everything about you. The one that only wants a hug and yet I never give it to. The one that understands me, yet knows that I’m better than all of those expectations and knows that I’m better than whatever I think I’m capable of. Those ones that seem perfect, that look perfect in every practical way and your friendship with them seems like the only sin that they’ll ever commit, and yet… and yet you know that it means as much to them as it does to you. And, of course, the ones that would actually lie down in a street for you.

This is dedicated to those brave souls that are also up far too late on a night like tonight. I’ll write you a letter tomorrow, tonight I can’t hold a pen. Someone’s gotta stamp I can borrow I promise not to blow the address again.

To paraphrase a far better person from somebody that I do not deserve to quote: If I were asked if I am a good friend I would say ‘no’ but I knew a lot of them.

Wow… the need to pass out has grown strong. Wwo this is the 69th pos.t awesome