Most days I’m content to go to bed and let rumble through my head the various details of the day: what went well, what went badly? What did I want to do tomorrow? It has only recently occurred to me that these are the very same thoughts I think when kissing someone I either don’t care about, or am no longer interested in. Now I have to wonder if this means I’m not even that interested in myself. But, last night was a kindly-dash-to-sleep as soon as I lay my weary head down. And it was weary. It wasn’t so long ago that I could live on 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night. But it also wasn’t terrifically recent either. And what prompted this great sleep, you may inquire? Well, it was a tremendous feeling of satisfaction.
I was tremendously satisfied with the universe because I found my long lost and oft reminisced for friend, Darcy. The last time I’d seen her, I was 18 and recklessly homeless searching for my lot in life. At some point, we just lost touch. It had bothered me for some time; so much so that every season or so (only the 2 when I was in LA), I would attempt to cast the wide net of discovery over the very wide web. I’d do the standard vaguely stalker type things like Bigfoot.com, yellowpages.com, switchboard.com, google.com, etc.
Darcy always held a special spot in the good side of my memories. I still have all the letter’s she wrote to me while she was in English class, and during breaks at work (I think it was Thrifty’s). Every once in a while, I dig ’em up and read through them. The addresses were the best (I always save the envelopes for some reason), “The Esteemed Sir Joshua Taylor”. Why do some people have such an impact on other people? And I can’t resist the selfish side of me wondering if I’ve had as big an impact on others. In all these years, there’s only a very few people I would truly love to see again. Given the amount of roaming I do, there’s a very large pool to choose from. Darcy has stood at the top of the list since I joined the Navy. Of course, I wouldn’t mind seeing Ken again from 1st grade and there is always Roger, who lived behind me on Harrison Ave. in El Paso and of course, Jim – but he’s dead. All these people made a stamp on me that somehow tugs an invisible string that tethers me to them. What condition of humanity bonds physical beings across ethereal distances? Rather than linger too long on waiting for the answer to find me, I think I’ll focus on enjoying the reconnection and leave the analysis for a different time.