The Difference a Year Makes

You know, it’s truly incredible the difference a year makes. You take for granted that there will be massive changes between several years, but yet it’s always surprising when you realize exactly how much of that change can happen in one year.

Yesterday was my friend Shawn’s 27th birthday. We started up an email conversation mid-morning, which culminated in a postscript for me to not forget to make the obligatory phone call to Victor reminding him of Shawn’s birthday. This also served to remind me – THAT I WAS AN ASSHOLE.

I’m sorry you had to remind me about your birthday, dude. I did remember it last weekend. But…that was last weekend. As you can see, since you have begun reading my blog recently, I have been somewhat preoccupied. However, that is no excuse. Therefore, as a belated present, this one’s for you, kid.

You asked me yesterday if Sphere of Danielle was about you. And when I called you to clarify, I jokingly dismissed it and I think that was the wrong thing to do. Knowing it was about Jim, as all those entries seem to be, I wanted to set your mind at ease and the quickest way I thought to do it was to dismiss it with a joke and blunt honesty.

I asked Kelly to read it and see what she thought and to get her feedback on how you might have seen it as being about you. She originally thought it was about someone else other than Jim as well. But really, when I read it from your point of view, maybe it is a little bit about you. Maybe it’s about all the people in my life I would like to have closer but just can’t because of distance or other extenuating circumstances.

But what I wanted to say is that even though you and I have certainly had our ups and downs, our friendship has remained one of the most consistent aspects of my life since I was 15 years old. That will never change.

I will never forget telling you of my decision to leave Los Angeles and crying on the phone and you reassuring me, even though all my objections and bad feelings revolved around opinions that seemed to insult your own personal choices. I never meant that to be the case, and I hope you know that. Despite how you may have felt about that, you brought me home and did most of the driving when us nearly getting killed proved I was too distracted for it.

You brought me home in one piece when I was smashed all to bits on the inside. And it took me a long time to realize you were, too. It took me until you were smashed to bits on the outside to really see that you were on this inside, too. So there we were, two Humpty-Dumptys, picking up our pieces and trying to fix ourselves. It was inevitable that in all that mess, I picked up a couple of your pieces and you got a couple of mine. Parts of ourselves fixed on to the other. I think it was those bits that got us through the next several months. It's those bits that kept us connected to one another. That piece of me that you have and the piece of you that I have.

The only other time one of my friendships was so brutally tested was the whole eight months with no word from You Know Who thing. But during that thing with YKW, I was doubtful the friendship would recover. I was fortunate that it did.

During the darkest days of those months when our friendship was stretched to its limit, I never doubted that one day we would recover. No matter how awkward or unsure I felt, or angry or hurt, I knew it would one day be something that would improve our friendship beyond our best expectations, because we had already been through the toughest shit imaginable, and we dug ourselves out with each other’s help. So, though those months were, at the time, a setback, the friendship that was left when the dust cleared was the greatest and best surprise. We survived once again.

So, I guess this is my way of saying that, though Sphere of Danielle could be interpreted as being about you, it wasn’t originally written with that intention. But if reading it makes you feel better about our friendship, then it absolutely is about you. I’ll give it you whole. It’s about you.

But really, Sphere of Danielle is about reclamation. And reclamation implies that something was lost, which is something that could never be said about our friendship. We were never lost. We may have been off each other’s radar for a while, but we were always there, always scanning the horizon for the first sign of trouble, poised to jump into the water if need be.

When I first heard this song, I immediately thought of you. I can’t wait for you to hear it, but this is the Big Lyric:

when you feel embarrassed
then I'll be your pride
when you need directions
then I’ll be the guide
for all time.
for all time.

Happy Birthday, Shawn.