Old friends make you wonder.

Work it make it do it makes us harder better faster stronger.

Is college weird? Is our whole education system weird? Think about it.

Age 5, at the latest: kids are put into a class to learn "social skills," how to listen to teachers, and how to share. They snack, play with toys, and count numbers. If they are lucky, they will be with the same group of 30-50 kids for the next 6 years, and form some sense of companionship.

Age 11, perhaps: the same kids might move onto a middle school, and have several classes every day, be segmented into class groups, and play school sports. If they're lucky in this circumstance, their good friends will have carried over into the same student body. If they're lucky, the class won't have begun to split along the lines of cliques...yet.

Age 15, or thereabouts, most likely: our "young adults" have shifted into a new space, high school, that's the real deal. Depending on your circumstance, you'll be with the same group of people you've been with since grade K, or you'll be with a whole new group of people, or you'll be with an unholy amalgamation of people, some of whom you know, some not. I've used the word "lucky" pretty loosely in these descriptions, I have no right to deem any path as more lucky than another, but I thought I would anyway.

[Speaking of, do you know what really grinds my gears? The fact that it costs a lot - a lot of money to go to public school. At least it does everywhere I've seen.]

Age 18, hopefully: if a kid is lucky - and I will use "lucky" here because I believe it with all my heart - they will get to do whatever they want to at this age. If they want to attend a university, they are lucky if they get to. But think about what happens when they do? They get a great opportunity, but who do they get to experience it with? New people - a great opportunity in that, too, but what happens to old friends?

I had a friend, his name was Johnathan Barnett. The fact that I just used the word "had" should tell you something.

We were as much friends as friends could be, in some sense, I believe. I suppose we really got to know each other..when? I can't even really remember. Early on. But middle school - that's 6th through 8th grade - those were the wonder years. Walker's Icy World on Center Point Parkway. CVS Pharmacy and Civitan Park on the way. Fireworks, pounds of fireworks in the street. Hours of billiards, Marvel vs. Capcom II on the Sega Dreamcast, and what else even? It's all a dear memory in my head, yet its so hard to flesh out the details - and I don't even want to, because its all there as it needs to be.

Then we went to high school, together, and it was pretty good.

Then we went to different high schools.

Are we still friends? I like to think so. But I can't honestly say if I am doing him or either of us an injustice in saying that or not. I don't know if its ever comfortable when we talk, even though I really always hope it is, and try to make it so. Do we really know that much about it either?

We didn't get to open up to one another about what came around in high school, did we?
Am I stupid for worrying about it?

This evening, I got a call from Owen Kidd and he told me that Stephanie Broome was here, wondering if I was anywhere around. I popped over and saw him, her, and Brian Jones. They are all friends or former friends or acquaintances of mine. I don't know why I'm so specific - they're friends. I can hardly even remember how long its been since I first met Stephanie. It was elementary school.

We've always been friends.

The first thing she said to me was "It's been a long, long time."
Yeah, it really had. I don't even know if I could quantify the time it had been, has been since we'd talked much at all. I don't know the extent to which I would have sought out keeping up with her more than I already had before tonight.

I've told a lot of people that are close to me that I'm always weary of seeing people that I hadn't seen since middle school out in restaurants, or at stores, or just on the road. Because do you really miss them? Have you really missed them?

It wasn't at all the same at night, but part of what hooked me was that I felt like Stephanie was actually sore for it to have been so long. To have missed what once was, even if it barely was in the first place. She was always a great friend, however much of a friend she ever was, which in the scale of things probably wasn't much.

To be honest with you, maybe that's why we stayed friends. Because we stayed around. We were "lucky" (reference "lucky" above) to know each other all the way through high school.
I'm not really sad. We chatted a bit about the typical "I haven't seen you in a while" things, and then we were just there, and then we parted our ways as she went on a tour of campus with Brian and her boyfriend.

And then I came home and blogged and was happy for the friends I have to make memories with now. I was happy for the girlfriend I can confide in, prod my mind open with, and hold on to. I was happy for the mind I have been given to think about these sorts of things with.

And I wondered about friends of old. I didn't draw the lines between everything that deserved to be connected in this little blurb, but I didn't figure I needed to either. Everyone's been there.

Or maybe we still are.