It can become so easy to look out on a broken city, or the failed attempt to do something that you deem important.  Too often it consumes me, the things I don’t do, my staggered and interrupted progress, or my constant procrastination.  It can become so easy to flounder and forget what really is important.

I’m left shaking my head this afternoon.

I place my fingers on either side of the ridge at the top of my nose and I squeeze.  Taking my fingers over my brows, I open up my closed eyes.

It’s been a hard week.

Only last night I was shaking my head at my failed attempts to memorize pointless figures and didgets, and today the triviality of life comes crashing in.

How silly I’ve been.

I’ve been so consumed by the things that I thought were stressing me out, that bad news comes heavier than expected.

I’d all but forgotten you, let you slip from my mind.  Though you graced my thoughts from time to time, it was always something fleeting.  You could be so brash, so loud, so abrupt… so caring, and patient, and kind, but I’m afraid I never knew the man that you’d become.

I’m afraid I didn’t know the “new” you.

I’m afraid I’ve broken so many hearts, that I don’t even know how hard I broke yours, or if I did at all.

It was a long time ago, that hot summer in Calgary and the picnic table in your back yard.  The mattress in your basement and the room upstairs.  The scabies and the others.  The piercings and the parties.  The bike ride up the hill and the grilled cheese sandwiches at the Harley Diner.

The first of something.

And you were a first in more ways than one, and perhaps that’s the part that leaves me feeling confused and cloudy right now.

Because nothing is as timeless or memorable as the first of something.

Facebook has come to connect and define us, but the remainder of it, even after we’re gone is a unique dilemma.  To not be defined by the things that we’ve done, and the memories that we leave behind, and rather to be remembered for our last profile pic, a silly wall post, or our very last actions, leaves me uneasy and empty inside.

The choices we make in those last days, those last moments, can have a tendency to remain with us forever.  I chose right now to remember the firsts of things, because they always make for better memories.

We are all eternally growing older amogst an ever expanding and shrinking group of connections.

Goodbye, old friend.