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Chris and I were talking.  He was giving me the update of his life in all the meaningless ways in which we measure such things.  He says he can relate to assertions that I can’t possibly be in my 30s because I feel 17.  But in his eyes were a touch of bitterness or acceptance that only haunts grown ups or children who have seen too much.  I wonder if my eyes betrayed the years in between. He laments his expanding waistline as I awkwardly fail to disguise mine.  These are pointless tasks though, as we both still see each other as we did a decade ago.  For now I’ll try to shake my horror at recalling my past and using words like “decade” to relate the passage of time.  He’s starting to get little wrinkles around his eyes.  He was always quick with a smile so that wasn’t surprising.  And the Arizona sun brought out the freckles I had nearly forgotten.  I laugh now and wonder how I could possibly forget his freckled skin and how I would torment him endlessly by trying to count them.  A task that even had we had an entire lifetime together, I would have failed at.  His freckles were my very own Milky Way.  You can try and count the stars with the best intentions.  My intentions were never curiosity, though I suppose you could call them the best intentions I could have.  To “bother” him so he would be forced to “distract” me.  This was my youth.  And I couldn’t have spent it better or endure more pain at it’s end.

He talks of his job and how he makes enough to exist in that dangerous “comfortable” zone.  He fears becoming complacent in his life even as he settles into his routines. And I think that is why we talk.  Just as he is my youth, I think I am his.  The happiness of a youth spent both frivolously and on the verge of collapse is invigorating to the 9-to-5 tennis playing inhabitant of the Yuppyville suburbs.

It’ll probably be another 5+ years before I see him again.  And I don’t know how I feel about that.  During the most profoundly life changing years of my life he was there.  And seeing him in the flesh is like being 21 again. For whatever that is worth.