news from home

So... I'm home for the weekend. Have you ever had one of those experiences where you come home and feel like you are being bombarded with news of things that happen while you are away? Like maybe you shouldn't have left because the stuff wouldn't pile up like that and ambush you all at once?

So anyway, here's what happened. I went to a small elementary school for 6 years. I was pretty close with all of my classmates, though now that I'm out I realize it wasn't as close as I once thought. Anyway, today I found out that T's mother died, and I feel awkward because I don't know if I should go to the funeral or wake. I spoke with another of my former classmates, who said he wasn't going. On the other hand, I did go to E's dad's funeral just after September 11. I'm having trouble deciding how loyal of a friend I'm supposed to be, after seeing someone no more than 3 times since the 8th grade.

The next bit of news is that my elementary school gym teacher was at a graduation party that I attended today. So my past is bombarding me. Her twins that I last saw when they were in diapers are now about 6 or 7 years old, and she has another daughter that I didn't know existed, who's 3. It was good to see her again. She was one of my favorite teachers. I remember once, the girls' gym class was missing almost all of the girls for some reason, and so the three remaining girls and the teacher just sat on the gym floor and played "Mandible" (ie, flap your jaw while you have girl talk). I remember she told us about how her husband proposed and we all thought it was "sooooo romantic!"

Final bit of news, also involving someone I met through my elementary school, only he also went to my church so we kept in touch and I think of him as one of my big brothers, additionally, he's engaged to my cousin. Anyway, he's been in Iraq for quite a while now (serving there for the second time) and I found out today, he is finally home, the last of my three "big brothers" who went to Iraq. So now I don't have to spend more time awake, praying and thinking about any of them, at least until the US gets involved in some other entanglement.

One more thing to say that really isn't breaking news, its just what's on my mind. I saw someone at the graduation party, and we just talked, catching up on stuff. It was the most natural thing in the world to talk, and yet felt so strange anyway. Because, in the back of my mind was the question, does he think about me the way I think about him? Does he feel like he is over it? Does he realize the distance I am beginning to put between us? How would he react if I started dating again? And yet, despite all that stuff in my head, I realized I care about him in a different way now. I will stick up for him, I will defend him with my life, if need be, the way I would with all of my friends. There's not a whole lot that sets him apart from my other friends in my mind. I still don't understand why the pain had to happen, and in some ways, the pain is still there. But its irreversible, and I think for a long time I had been hoping that the pain was only temporary. That somehow, I could go back in time. I can't. The only thing left to do is heal the pain, not pretend it had never happened. I am grateful that I can count him in my list of friends. Just friends.