I really feel that this chapter is aimed directly at me, as generic and widespread the heartache of lost friendships may be.
The friend I wish I never lost touch with was Jon Nelson. [FSAE: You sucked at sentences ending prepositions with. You still do.] As you may have noticed, going to a school as private as my elementary would leave short room for enemies. So I pretty much got along with everybody, and I've carried that attitude with me to Valley, although I need to work on my attitude with my family. But Jon was the only other guy in my grade, and we got along like brothers. We even joked that we could have been twins, minus the obvious differences in appearances, because he was born merely hours after I was, celebrating his birthday on the 19th after mine on the 18th. We helped each other for everything, encouraging each other in everything from pull-ups in P.E. to helping with homework or memorization. We could talk about anything with each other, to our nine-year old minds' content.
Jon Nelson was one of the only friends I [have ever] invited to my home, which may seem trivial [in light of the circumstances surrounding my neighborhood's deficit in multiple generations], but to me it symbolized a great deal of importance to invite people to see who I really am, where I'm myself the most, [for better and worse]. It may be commonplace elsewhere, but in my heart, inviting friends over is something of a no-secrets relationship, and I haven't had that with many of my friends since Jon Nelson and his brothers. He has two brothers that I also call my friends: Scott the younger and Mark the older. Scott is my little brother's age, so our parents thought we would work like clockwork together, and so we did. Mark was the first friend I made when I began attending Covenant Christian Academy, and he helped ease me into the whole ten-kids-in-one-classroom-but-they're-all-different-grade-levels-and-taught-by-the-same-intimidating-teacher-Mrs.-Jocilyn-Warren. I really had a pretty deep relationship with the Nelson boys, but in the fourth or fifth grade, their father's work transferred him to San Diego, and I failed time and again my promise to write and keep in touch.
I never really saw Jon for the longest time, besides certain get-togethers and events sponsored by our church's presbytery, in which we would have awkward conversations aout how we've been doing, about how we've been growing apart the years we have been separated.
I'm his friend on Facebook, but what does that mean? We've grown so far apart from our former friendship that I sometimes wonder if things would have gone differently if I had been a faithful and loyal friend, but I know that heartache is part of God's plan to strengthen me and cause me to become more mature, learning from my mistakes. This experiential knowledge has lead me to be more faithful to my friends, but I have not let some of my closest friends into the deepest recesses of my heart, for reasons I cannot explain even to myself.
[FSAE: Nope. I still don't have an answer.]
I think the love is so much easier than you realize:
if you can give yourself to someone, then you should.
Dawes, "A Little Bit Of Everything" -- (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36bItoBXpxk)
Of course, discretion is advised. I.e.- NOT just "someone."
The friend I wish I never lost touch with was Jon Nelson. [FSAE: You sucked at sentences ending prepositions with. You still do.] As you may have noticed, going to a school as private as my elementary would leave short room for enemies. So I pretty much got along with everybody, and I've carried that attitude with me to Valley, although I need to work on my attitude with my family. But Jon was the only other guy in my grade, and we got along like brothers. We even joked that we could have been twins, minus the obvious differences in appearances, because he was born merely hours after I was, celebrating his birthday on the 19th after mine on the 18th. We helped each other for everything, encouraging each other in everything from pull-ups in P.E. to helping with homework or memorization. We could talk about anything with each other, to our nine-year old minds' content.
Jon Nelson was one of the only friends I [have ever] invited to my home, which may seem trivial [in light of the circumstances surrounding my neighborhood's deficit in multiple generations], but to me it symbolized a great deal of importance to invite people to see who I really am, where I'm myself the most, [for better and worse]. It may be commonplace elsewhere, but in my heart, inviting friends over is something of a no-secrets relationship, and I haven't had that with many of my friends since Jon Nelson and his brothers. He has two brothers that I also call my friends: Scott the younger and Mark the older. Scott is my little brother's age, so our parents thought we would work like clockwork together, and so we did. Mark was the first friend I made when I began attending Covenant Christian Academy, and he helped ease me into the whole ten-kids-in-one-classroom-but-they're-all-different-grade-levels-and-taught-by-the-same-intimidating-teacher-Mrs.-Jocilyn-Warren. I really had a pretty deep relationship with the Nelson boys, but in the fourth or fifth grade, their father's work transferred him to San Diego, and I failed time and again my promise to write and keep in touch.
I never really saw Jon for the longest time, besides certain get-togethers and events sponsored by our church's presbytery, in which we would have awkward conversations aout how we've been doing, about how we've been growing apart the years we have been separated.
I'm his friend on Facebook, but what does that mean? We've grown so far apart from our former friendship that I sometimes wonder if things would have gone differently if I had been a faithful and loyal friend, but I know that heartache is part of God's plan to strengthen me and cause me to become more mature, learning from my mistakes. This experiential knowledge has lead me to be more faithful to my friends, but I have not let some of my closest friends into the deepest recesses of my heart, for reasons I cannot explain even to myself.
[FSAE: Nope. I still don't have an answer.]
I think the love is so much easier than you realize:
if you can give yourself to someone, then you should.
Dawes, "A Little Bit Of Everything" -- (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36bItoBXpxk)
Of course, discretion is advised. I.e.- NOT just "someone."
This post makes me depressed, cause things like that happen so often. :-o
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