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| Rey Rey's Broke Ass |
My good friend Reshma celebrated her 21st birthday (so she gets a shout-out and a pic!) last Monday, so I called up Rey, Anna, Mike, and Chin and we kicked of the week the best way I know how: dirty girl scouts
and green line at Muldoon’s. Rey had class the next day, so we kept things pretty low-key, but it was a blast hanging out with everyone. I, for one, am certainly glad that Reshma was born twenty-one years ago, even with all the grief and grey hairs that our delightfully unconventional friendship has brought me. But jokes aside, she has a kind heart, and I’ve cherished every shed-climbing, car-crashing, ginger-bread-constructing (above) moment.
and green line at Muldoon’s. Rey had class the next day, so we kept things pretty low-key, but it was a blast hanging out with everyone. I, for one, am certainly glad that Reshma was born twenty-one years ago, even with all the grief and grey hairs that our delightfully unconventional friendship has brought me. But jokes aside, she has a kind heart, and I’ve cherished every shed-climbing, car-crashing, ginger-bread-constructing (above) moment. The mix of celebrators was eclectic to say the least. Anna and Rey and I had hung out throughout the majority of freshman and sophomore year in high school, but we had never been all together again for at least a couple of years. And with Mike and Chin (who are stellar Muldoon’s companions, by the way, just great all-around guys), I had just met them working at Shane’s, and it wasn’t until recently that we started spending time together that did not consist entirely of cold-cut assemblage. I’m not exactly sure how these two distinctly different groups, relative opposites of the friend continuum, came to be sharing drinks in that mahogany nook, but it worked out.
Despite my undeniable enjoyment of the night, the reunion of old friends always manages to evoke a nostalgic melancholy for me. It’s the kind of feeling I picture accompanying the exhumation of a back-yard time capsule: a postmortuary air of concern over the contents’ intrinsic value having seeped into the soil. The effort it takes to rouse dormant emotion- it just seems sometimes more like rehashing than reminiscing. This admission might seem strange, or overly pessimistic, but I can easily trace the origins of this sentiment to this last year, a period marred by the indecision and ambiguity from being in between schools. It shaped an underlying fear that my life has become a terminal for the people in it: a constant shuffling of relationships old and new, wearied and indifferent. Amidst the hustle and bustle around me, I’ve come to a standstill. It’s a sentiment effectively summarized in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated
: “She felt a total displacement, like a spinning globe brought to a sudden halt by the light touch of a finger. How did she end up here, like this? How could there have been so much - so many moments, so many people and things…- without her being aware? How did her life live itself without her?”
: “She felt a total displacement, like a spinning globe brought to a sudden halt by the light touch of a finger. How did she end up here, like this? How could there have been so much - so many moments, so many people and things…- without her being aware? How did her life live itself without her?” As most of my friends seem to be moving forward, towards aspirations and careers, I’ve regressed in muddled passivity. This has no doubt put a strain on my current interactions with long-standing friends, as I feel hesitant to initiate a phone conversation or small talk in which my response to their accounts of festivity and prodigious accomplishments is invariably limited to the latest episode of high school drama that I’ve snatched from my athletes or the most recent mechanical malfunction at the deli. I find myself showing further disdain for optimism in my perception of new relationships; as most people still residing in Wheaton are in a similarly transitory state, even the most meaningful of these interactions seem hopelessly fleeting.
While the gradual events (or non-events) of this last year that have molded this fear, it was the Wednesday before last (April 27th) that brought this concern into the forefront of my thoughts. Two years from that day, my close friend Ryan passed away, and as I have wrote about before, it was a crippling loss. But as tragic as it was, it was also the most instrumental moment in my life in shaping who I am, and in drawing our group of friends together. The bond that connects us was forged in a turmoil so strong, that I could think of nothing that could ever break it completely.
That being said, I am quickly learning the inevitable nature of friends growing apart. As our respective paths are starting to become more pronounced, the heterogeneous nature of our group that once made us so inseparable is now causing significant divergences in the near future. My friend Kimmy’s recent post reminded me of a Dave Eggers quote from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
, and indeed, I can’t help but fell like I am losing friends in the same way we lose weeks: “like buttons, like pencils.” For a completist like myself, this process feels about as subtle as a riot, the tearing-apart utterly seismic.
, and indeed, I can’t help but fell like I am losing friends in the same way we lose weeks: “like buttons, like pencils.” For a completist like myself, this process feels about as subtle as a riot, the tearing-apart utterly seismic. The deterioration of friendship is every bit as pervasive and inescapable as our physical atrophying, but my fear of this natural process is paralytic. I find myself, as a result, jaded towards others; at times there is nothing in me that wants to invest in new relationships, to go through the vulnerability of becoming acquainted with that new person. It’s the same juvenile mentality that we all have experienced: Why should I make my bed if it’ll just be messy again, or for the more feral of children, why should I brush my teeth if they will just be sugar-coated again? Looking at it rationally, I can understand the seperation as progress, but I guess I’m just too immature young at heart to embrace it.
To call this feeling an undying loyalty would be giving myself far to much credit, as a significant aspect of this perspective can be chalked up to egocentricity. As I admitted, I’m a completist, and with this pettiness comes the more egregious tendency to “collect” my friends. Instead of accurately perceiving the strengths and flaws of my peers, and accepting the whole in its beautiful complexity, I frame the traits that I find to be most congruous with and beneficial to myself, and carelessly toss the rest.
This self-centered compartmentalization is in large part due to finding the vast majority of my worth in the perception of others. As my priorities have gradually shifted over the last several years from loving/fearing God or religion to loving/fearing people, I’ve grown increasingly in tune to the scrutiny of others. This theological shift has also produced a life perspective centered more on the present, and that adds exponential importance to daily, interpersonal interactions. In other words, the erosion of a friendship during high school might have seemed inconsequential from my macro-spiritual viewpoint, but identical occurrences from this micro level now seem glaring. As irrational as my fear may initially sound, I don’t have much trouble seeing why I would take the petering out of a friendship so personally after heeding my current existential convictions.
It was the shift in friendships that first made this fear plain to me, but this concern transcends mere camaraderie. I’ve always placed a lot of stock in my friendships, but I am also threatened by shifts in things of more practical importance. I have already elaborated on my personal feelings about running and its weighty effects on one’s self-esteem, and as a consequence I have seen my personal aspirations in the sport dwindle. Countless changes in my major and career path over the last few years have also resulted in significant stress, and even now, there is much uncertainty with the direction I plan to take. It is the doubt that crosses my mind every time I toe the starting line, every time my cursor hovers over the “Publish Post” button- it is, simply put, the fear of failure.
of Doomtree
in her song “Mineshaft”, I feel ashamed that “the list of things I used to be is longer than the list of things I am: ex-lover, ex-friend, ex-communicated atheist, ex-patriot living in the heartland.” Just as I’m hesitant to start a new friendship that’s bound to end sometime, I worry about starting something new (like writing), when some level of failure is inevitable. And odds are when that failure comes, it will detract from whatever modest attributes I possess, and tip the scales that much further towards the things I am not. Micachu- Fine feat. Brotha May and Baker Trouble
Stumbled upon this song after reading about Micachu's latest mixtape, Filthy Friends. Micachu is an English singer-songwriter and producer, and is best known for her band Micachu and the Shapes, and their critically-acclaimed album from 2009, Jewellery
. She does a whole lot of crazy, artsy shit like inventing instruments that I don't really care about. Lackluster description, but the song more than makes up for it.
. She does a whole lot of crazy, artsy shit like inventing instruments that I don't really care about. Lackluster description, but the song more than makes up for it. download here
, released in early March, Starfucker is comprised of Joshua Hodges (vocals, keyboards, guitar, drums), Ryan Biornstad (guitar, keyboard, vocals, turntables), Shawn Glassford (bass, keyboards, drums), and Keil Corcoran (drums, keyboards, vocals). I don't enjoy all their stuff, but this song's been on heavy rotation ever since I scooped it off Hype Machine, so enjoy!
