Why Josh Can't Be Left Alone

As I was preparing to finish the story that began in my previous post, I realized that before I could end with an epilogue, I should really start with a prologue.

It would be an understatement to be saying "old friends" were coming to town. That might be an expression you'd use if some guys that you were once in a few classes with happened to be on a vacation in your area. Most likely you'll run into them unexpected at some local eatery, slap each other on the back, laugh over the "Good 'ol days", and then go your separate ways. The first thing you'll do is try and remember that guys name.

But in my case, these weren't just guys that I had some past experiences in common with. These guys were my past. When I moved to Chicago when I was 6, we all went to school together. There was a group of seven guys, and we did everything together. A lot of it probably was practical. Our parents probably appreciated having a consistent circle for carpools and after school babysitting. But when the same group of seven guys have all of their birthday parties together, go to the same camp, play on the same Little League teams, and go to school through 8th grade together, there's bound to be not just a few memories, but some formative experiences. I had a joint Bar Mitzvah with two of the guys in Israel. I spent two different summers with the families of two of these guys in Israel. These guys were part of the moments that have shaped who I am today, even if can't pinpoint them.

But things change. One of the guys made Aliyah to Israel with his family in 5th grade. I wrote him a letter everyday, which gradually become a less frequent endeavor. One of the guy's parents got divorced, and he moved in with his dad and transferred to another school. Another boy moved to California, where summer visits would be our annual reunion. Then came High School. I went to a different school than everybody else, and our lives slowly diverged. There would be the official get togethers that became more and more infrequent. Eventually, the random neighborhood run-in became our most common catch-up time.

By the time college came, we had very little in common. At least one of us seemed to be in with the "wrong" crowd, and we had all developed extra-curricular interests that varied considerably more than our Little League days. We were in different cities, and never saw each other, period. Of the entire group, I ran into one of them once at a wedding in Israel, but other than that, we had completely lost touch since high school.

When one of the guys died suddenly in college, I was reminded of how much of my earlier years had vanished. I was in another city at the time, and rather than reconnect me with my past, I felt the isolation even more. I wrote a letter to his parents, telling them how important a friend he had been, even though I hadn't seen him in years.

And that takes us to this past Thanksgiving Day. Seeing these guys all over the internet made me proud. But it also made me nervous. Did I really have anything in common with these guys any more? Guys aren't so sentimental. Would they appreciate all that had been, all that we had missed?

I didn't tell anyone in my family about the game or about my plans to go. I had enough built up expectations that I didn't want to let anyone else down. The game was at noon, but I was dreading going. Would I have anything to say to them? Would they recognize me? We had all changed considerably over the years.

I fell asleep at 10:30 AM, and I'll admit, I was hoping that if I just slept through the game, I could chalk it up as out of my control, and let the whole thing just have been some interesting tidbit in the news. I woke up, and looked at the clock relieved when I saw the clock read 1:30. I relaxed a bit, thinking I could hide from my past by inaction. But I passed into another room, and saw that it was only 12:30 (I keep my travel clock on New York time). Realizing that the inevitable had been ordained, I got dressed and finally told my parents my plans as I was leaving.

I drove down to the field, but didn't see any game. There were many cars, and a few people, but, most noticeably, an empty field. I could've asked one of the people I passed where the game was, but I felt embarrassed to be seen, to ask not for a football game but for a reunion, as if I was a fugitive trying to escape from my past. I circled twice, doing my duty, and left the park, too ready to evade the encounter. After all, wouldn't it be easier to just let my friends stay as they were in my photographs than have to come up with something to say to them?

I left the parking lot, but decided that I should try another park, so that I wouldn't go home without at least having a decent attempt to report. The other park was absolutely empty, so I knew that the game wasn't there. It was 1:30 by this time, and the game would be nearing its conclusion. But strengthened with the added comfort that the game might be over before I could show up, I decided to try the original location one last time. Did I really want to be known as the guy who avoided his old crowd?

As I pulled up, I noticed another field tucked nearly underneath a highway overpass, with a few dozen freezing cold stick figures running around. I hesitantly parked, with the realization that there was no avoiding it anymore. I would face my old friends. What scared me, I realized, was not that I was running from my past. I was paralyzed by uncertainty about the present. It was a given that this moment would be awkward. How could it not? We hadn't seen each other in ten years, they didn't know to expect me, and they were in the middle of a sports contest! We probably had less in common today than when we had last seen each other, and the freezing cold field wasn't the ideal setting to rekindle past warmth.

But the most apprehensive aspect of the moment was the role of memory. In my mind, we were best friends, sharing everything. If now we were to greet as awkward strangers, the rosy looking-glass backwards would be shattered by reality. Did I want to ruin the frozen picture of my childish innocence by forcing it to confront the hard reality of the present?

As I walked onto the field, I tried to pretend that I was just there as a random Jew showing up for a queer cultural spectacle, removed from the characters themselves. I arrived at the sidelines, and was promptly greeted with a wave from the field by a face I couldn't recognize. Then, on the sidelines, some of the other spectators turned around, and I was caught finally in the reality that I was here. It was one of my friend's family, and fortunately I recognized them. I caught up quickly with them, but they were just leaving the game, so I didn't have to make conversation for too long.

The weather was brutally cold, and I was unprepared. Fortunately, the game was called early (the Jews won 21-0, for those keeping score). But now the inevitable post-game reunion had arrived. The player that had waved came straight over and gave me a hug. It was the friend that had moved to Israel in 5th grade, 15 years ago. Just behind him was one of the other guys who warmly greeted me. I followed them back towards the team, to see who else I might know. It turned out that there was one other of the original group there, as well as one other guy that I knew growing up.

But the romanticism ends there. There is no golden ending. It was every bit as awkward as I'd imagined. We caught up, with the usual, "So what are you doing now?" Just like you'd ask of the random out of town acquaintance you might run into at the deli. Because the reality was that we have as little in common today as you would expect. We caught up on our current status (one of the guys is married, and two of them were still undergrads- I wasn't the last!), but then it was just going our own ways. There was no, "Let's get together for one last hurrah." They finished cleaning up and I got into my car. They'll go back to the cities they came in from to visit for the holiday weekend, and I went back to my bedroom in my parent's house.

Maybe I shouldn't have gone. Maybe I should have let my childhood memories live on as myths. Or maybe I should have stayed in touch, or reached out to bring us back together after all these years. But maybe I did exactly the right thing. Real life is just that, real. You can't hide from it, and push it into dreamland. These were real friends, and even if I only reached out to them for a few minutes, it still shows that the friendship means something to me. I know that this annual game serves as a mini-reunion for those that take part in it. While I may not enjoy sports, I hope that I can open one afternoon a year to showing these guys that they remain every bit as important to me today as the guys that I am sharing my current experiences with. Throughout life, you'll make friends and lose them, but the ones you have today define you no more than the friends you had yesterday.

I'm sorry for making this so long. Obviously this episode came with a lot of emotion for me to deal with, and writing is my best form of expression. The lesson is never to hold on too tight, but never to let go completely. And that goes for reality as well as your dreams.