The More Things Change...

With Kelsey being gone this week, I had to fill my time somehow. Normally I fill my time by talking to and hanging out with Kelsey...so there was definitely a void. I decided to call one of my good friends (who is now an illustrious veteran of our United States Marines) Justin and see him on Tuesday night.

Justin was arguably my closest friend in high school. At any rate, I probably spent more time with him than anyone else. Then college happened. I went to Iowa State (after a brief sojourn in Mankato). He went to Iowa. We've kept in touch, but going from seeing someone every day to seeing/talking to someone once or twice a year changes the dynamics of a friendship. No more is time able to be spent just sitting around in comfortable silence. Time needs to be filled with the act of, "catching up."

This was quite a change for Justin and me because we spent most of our time together in high school watching TV, and by TV, I mean WWF wrestling. Before you judge, realize that wrestling was insanely popular when we were in high school. I mean, the ROCK was still a wrestler and not a great actor in bad movies. Well for those of you that haven't heard (which is probably all of you), on Valentine's Day the Rock came back to the world of professional wrestling. Hollywood must not be making a Tooth Fairy 2.


Since Justin graduated (for the lack of a better term) from the Marines, he's been living in Cedar Falls for a bit while he looks for a job (if anyone wants to hire an intelligent, college educated Marine for something, anything, please let me know). This has afforded us the opportunity to see each other more often and move past the "catching up." When we talked about what we wanted to do after dinner, I mentioned that I'd DVR'd WWF from the night before--since the Rock might be on again. I asked if he wanted to watch it. He said of course he did.

He then mentioned another friend from high school, Brian, was in town. Earlier, I said Justin was arguably my closest friend in high school. The only reason it is an argument is because a case could be made for Brian. I occupied most of my time in high school with one of these two or both. I haven't kept in very good touch with Brian. I've received passing updates on his life from those who have kept in touch with him. But he was in town, so sure, come on over Brian.

Let's flashback to a typical (and by typical I mean every single) Monday night in high school. Justin would come over. We would turn on pro wrestling. We would worry about details of the show for some reason. We got very upset if the people we liked, lost, because it mattered for some reason? Brian would stop by at some point a half hour to an hour into the broadcast. He would pretend he wasn't interested in the show and start making fun of everything...even though he secretly liked it. We did all this in the confines of my basement. I'd be drinking water from this yellow cup:

The best cup ever. I have two. I'd pay top dollar for more of them.

Let's flashback to Tuesday. Justin came over. We turned on pro wrestling. We didn't really worry about the details of the show. We didn't even know who was winning or losing. It didn't matter. Brian stopped by at some point a half hour into the broadcast. He pretended he wasn't interested in the show and started making fun of everything...even though he was secretly enjoying it as much as Justin and me. We did all this in the confines of my basement. I was drinking water from the same yellow cup (which I stole from my parent's upon graduating high school).

We watched some other TV that night. We talked about jobs and adult stuff. We mostly just made fun of each other the way people do who like being around other just because. My understanding of the last ten year's of Brian's life are sketchy at best. I think he moved to California for a spell. He recently lived in Minnesota. Justin has been to Iraq and Afghanistan and done work he can't even talk about. He's lived in Texas and California. But there we were: the three of us in a basement, as if nothing had changed.

And really, nothing (and everything) has.