Another Anniversary

Five years ago this weekend, I drove up to Tulsa to see an old high school friend. We'd both had pretty rough 2011s, losing long-term relationships and shaking our lives up; his 2012 had been worse, losing his job and then his father. He had seemed more terse and avoidant than usual online, and after his repeated rebuffing of my offers of hospitality for a couple of days' break from his reality, I just... went. I literally just hit the road with a message: "I'm coming. Send me your address." I drove there not knowing if he'd even check his messages... he didn't have a phone and he wasn't on Facebook much and that was the only way I had to get in touch with him. But I was worried, and I wanted to show up and... do something. I didn't know how much it would help, but I knew what I could do: cook.

Fortunately, he did tell me where he lived. And then he worried. There were drug deals in the parking lot, and he often heard gunshots. I had let him know I was almost there, so when I arrived, he was waiting for me near his building. I'd seen him eight months earlier, and he was markedly smaller. So skinny. So spent.

And it was a little awkward. I'd known him for 25 years, but we hadn't seen each other besides that one hour at a contra dance, in more than two decades. How do you start the conversation? "I'm here to save your life"? Is that what I was doing? I didn't know. But I just knew I couldn't do nothing.

So we went out for Thai food. And we talked for hours. The next day, we bought groceries and went to an art museum and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. We spent several hours at my hotel, cooking in the "full kitchen" that had been stocked with zero cooking implements, so we'd just cobbled together stuff from his apartment and some roasting tins I'd bought. Beef and broccoli. Brownies. Those, I remember. I made several other dishes I've forgotten.

We caught up. We told stories. We shared our favorite YouTube videos. We talked about religion and politics and it was so easy... I knew him, but I didn't know this version of him. So it was easy but also a mystery.

Then I went home.

And I was fine with that.

He was in Oklahoma, and I was moving to Austin in a couple of months, after my next community theater show.

But he messaged me and apologized for suggesting it, but asking if we could get together one more time before I left.

We did. We actually got together. Somehow. Effortlessly, almost. After my having tried to hard in our youths. Once I wasn't trying, not for that, anyway, it happened.

Neither of us was in the best place, emotionally. My plans to move were equal parts "running to" and "running away." Wiser heads likely would have recommended we each heal separately before trying to pair up.

But we did it the way that we did it, and over time and miles and discussions and texts and tears and laughter, we did both heal... not in a "you complete me" kind of way, but we healed ourselves, individually, with the help and support of a best friend, and then our togetherness got better and stronger as a result.

Five years later... On one hand, it's passed so quickly that my head spins at the drastically different life I have today compared to then. On the other hand, it feels like we have been sharing this life for so much longer.

I am profoundly grateful that, for whatever reason, I would not be dissuaded from that initial road trip. We got so tired of all of those drives back and forth, but I think every single thing, all of it, served to forge a foundation upon which we both find it surprisingly easy to build today.

Not that life is simple. We have a blended family consisting of a teenager and a toddler. We have all of the usual stuff: job, house, responsibilities, disagreements, misunderstandings. But above it all, and below it all, and around it all, we have each other. The end.