Speaking of emails…

So, when I was in HS and JHS, I had a friend, Shawn, who was my only friend. I often tell people I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, really, I just had one. Seriously.

Shawn and I did everything together! We probably saw each other four days a week. We were both comic book junkies and met at the comic book store where I later got a job while I was in JHS. We spent a lot of time just hanging out reading comic books and a heck of a lot of time playing video games until wee hours of the night. He spent many a night at my house and, when his dad was out of town, we would stay over at his dad’s house. I remember his dad had a pool table which I thought was the coolest. I also remember wondering why I never met his dad and why we would only go over when his dad was out of town. Shawn lived with his grandmother in the same town that his dad lived and I never did get that. He may be reading my blog as I forwarded him the link, and I don’t want to make him uncomfortable, but I didn’t get it.

Anyway, Shawn was there for pretty much all of my formative years. We both took an interest in watching the Detroit Red Wings hockey team and that inspired us to try out street hockey and later roller hockey.

We had so much fun playing street hockey, it brings a smile to my face thinking about it. We would head down to the tennis courts a few blocks from my house, just the two of us, to have the most competitive, raucous games, running back and forth around the court, with our crazy made up rules, sweating and yelling – man it was fun! I would come home with bruises all over my shins from my attempts to block his shots into our milk crate goals. As a kid I always considered myself more athletic them him, but you know what, I remember now that the win/lose record favored him significantly – ha!

Shawn was, and I imagine still is to his current friends, very loyal. Willing to do what I wanted to do, he let me take the lead and was always there if I wanted to get together. He was consistent, very intense and polite. He was willing to stretch himself and always open to trying something new, especially when it came to athletics.

I bet he has some interesting stories from my childhood. It would be nice to get an outsiders perspective on what I considered to be the most depressing time of my life. No offense to Shawn of course. Looking back, he was one of the few positive things going for me. He was certainly my best friend.

Which makes what I did to him all the worse. Now don’t worry, I didn’t beat him up or steal his girlfriend or anything. No, what I did was to drop him as a friend as soon as I could (which is pretty bad, I know). When I left Monroe, my hometown, to go to Michigan State University, I pretty much stopped calling Shawn altogether. Even as I write this I think it might have been earlier than that. Maybe it was when I was a senior in HS and I got a girlfriend and through her made some more friends; but I don’t quite remember exactly when I stopped hanging out with Shawn.

It was a pretty awful thing to do. I did it for a couple of reasons, I think. One of the reasons was probably because when I left my hometown to go to college, I wanted to leave that whole life behind. I wanted to start over and have nothing to do with anyone who I knew from Monroe. My mom can attest to that, we hardly communicated while I was in college, maybe we talked once every three months.

But probably the bigger reason was - I thought I was too cool for Shawn. My new girlfriend was sort of on the periphery of the cool kids and I wanted the cool kids to like me. And, again no offense to Shawn, but we were not the cool kids, I know I wasn’t a cool kid. So I thought, well, if I want the cool kids to like me, I have to drop this non-cool friend.

Keep in mind, I was starving for approval – those who know me now would attest that in some ways I still do – so I didn’t even consider what this would do to Shawn. I didn’t think about what a loyal and important person he had been in my life. I didn’t think about anyone but myself.

It was so long ago, and I never really dealt with the feelings, and I never made any real attempts to look him up. Worse, I have no idea what impact this might have had on him, although maybe I am being a little too self important here.

It’s even hard for me to relate to the adolescent me and I can barely conjure up the feelings of guilt I should maybe have. But, I am sorry Shawn. I have no idea what you might think of me, or our friendship, but I am sorry.

Now, some of you might have picked up on the fact that Shawn and I have reconnected, just over the last couple of days. Apparently Shawn has a MySpace account and I created, but do not use at all, a MySpace account, which he found and emailed me through. Hence, the title of this post – and some of you didn’t think it made any sense! Ha!

We have only exchanged one email and I have no idea where it will lead from here. Who knows, maybe part of my trouble for so long in finding friends was karma paying me back for dumping Shawn. Upon reflection, maybe I deserved it.

I wonder what he is like now, what is his life about. What does he feel passion for, who are his friends, what makes him happy, what kinds of blessings does he have and what kinds of blessings does he give. I hope life has been good to him. I hope the people he knows have been good to him and that his life is filled with whatever he finds important, whatever makes him happy.

I appreciate him reaching out to me, after all these years. It has helped me recall that my childhood was not all gloom, there was a little light shining through. Thanks Shawn, for being my companion and best friend, who knows if I would have survived without you.