Gone are the days when I have time to edit my thoughts into coherent bits--and since I have only recently discovered that most everyone else in this world has an inner monologue that basically tells them what to say and do, word for word before it comes out of their mouths *, and they don't spend 95% of their typing time hitting backspace to translate the four different emoji conversations happening over the background song (at the moment it's "I Like Me Better When I'm With You" by Lauv)--anyone who happens to still be reading this is stuck trying to figure out what I'm trying to say, as I edit the feelings and images in my mind into English.
It's coming up on Valentine's Day. Jon and I have declared that a "dead" holiday for us (perhaps after 13 years, a blog reveal about H and two children later, we might now be able to talk about how we almost broke up on that first one...some other time). My actual best February 14 ** was going to IKEA with one of my bffs and Prom Date, highcon, who gathered us together this past weekend to say adios to Chicago (again) as he officially moves back to New York (again) to be with his love, K.
I rode the train in with JZ, a friend of mine from elementary school, who also ended up being great friends with highcon in junior high/middle school. The districting around here is wacky so JZ and I were split in jr. high and everyone was reunited together in high school, where I met highcon. I'll skip to the TL;DR: We all go waaay back.
So JZ and I are at this fancy restaurant an entire hour early. I send this text to highcon:
"T-53 minutes. Highcon, do you know where your wallet is?
And your phone.
And your keys.
And your man?
We are here and already drinking."
His response, 46 minutes (or T-14 minutes until the private party was set to begin):
"Omg.
I lost my phone!!!!!
It's in an Uber and he's meeting us at [fancy restaurant].
My work one.
Kill me!
So, you called it"
Highcon has a history of these shenanigans. It is mind-blowing that someone who cannot keep track of mundane things such as cellphones, keys and wallets has somehow risen through the ranks to become a bigshot at an international company, literally making billion-dollar decisions on the regular. I'm not usually one to drop annoying hints like this, but he and his equally successful sweetheart have a house on Martha's Vineyard and travel the world for fun. But at the end of the day, he's still the same silly guy who'd procrastinate with me on English papers and talk smack about classmates until the wee hours of the morning on the phone in high school.
I had already been feeling extremely nostalgic recently. I don't know if it's because I'm starting to really feel the wear and tear of 41 years on my body, or that caring for small children while trying to maintain a house, a marriage and a very demanding job that requires me to not quite ever be "logged out" is making me wonder what would have happened if I had taken any of the other options when I got to forks in the road. I regret nothing, but when you watch cheesy teen movies like "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" and read books about young people coming into their own and discovering love and life, and you celebrate one of your besties taking a great leap into the semi-unknown (his mom asked K if he was "ready to have highcon full time"), realizing that you're halfway done with this life is kind of like a sharp kick to the stomach. With a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking.
During the warm and jovial dinner, several of us got a text that a classmate (and good friends of one of the other people) had suddenly died of cancer, leaving behind a wife and a 15-month old. This, on top of the unexpected death of Kobe Bryant, who was revered in our house by the devoted Laker fans, the one-year anniversary of Ri's brother-in-law-to-be dying of a heart attack a month before his wedding to her sister, and the pre-sad anguish anchor I drag around every moment of every day about the possibility of losing my brother was too much to bear. I broke down. Maybe it was the alcohol.
JZ had a clearer head and got me up and out of there so we could catch the train home. I had to be at work at 6am Sunday, for a work go live--which was not a fun experience, but I'll have to write another post about how the job is going. I was so thankful to have that evening. Sixteen people came together to talk about why we love highcon, sharing stories digging up exactly the kind of dirt you have on someone with whom you rode the bus or helped figure out how to put contact lenses in.
The morning after the party, when I was broke-brain as hell, I got about 3/4 of the way to work and realized I had left my computer at home and got there at 6:20a instead of 20 min early. Then I couldn't locate my cellphone for about 5 hours. I literally walked from the car, into the office, up the steps and to the Command Center to check in. I couldn't have left it at home because the directions were telling me just how late I was going to be and I was listening to Sarah Silverman tell Conan O'Brien about how he thwarted her plans to make out with him many years ago by telling her he was recently engaged. After THREE car searches, I located my phone. I texted highcon and JZ:
"Dude, thank you (and K) for the lovely party I had so much fun, and sorry if I was obnoxious--I haven't been drinking in a LONG time!
In total karmic justice, this morning at 5am I forgot to put my laptop in the car and had to turn around halfway, and then couldn't find my damn phone for like five hours! It had slipped between the console and the passenger seat. I think this is payback for giving you crap yesterday."
His response:
"Bwahahahahah
See this is why we are friends
We are all functional hot messes"
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't know where all the time went. But talking about all that old stuff, which was SO IMPORTANT back then, and realizing that most of us can only even recall it in pieces so we have to be in the same space to argue and put it all together, makes me realize that this life is zooming. Just flying by. And I'm so thankful to have written some of it down.
*subsequent posts on this dude's blog say that he has ADD, so there goes that theory (I am not officially diagnosed, but an ADD therapist said almost all the markers light up for me having ADHD or something of the sort).
** I pulled that post up on my phone to show K what a sweetheart highcon was for going to all the trouble of printing out a kids' coloring-book valentine to give me on the way to IKEA.
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