'Cause I'm Gonna Make You See, There's Nobody Else Here, No One Like Me, I'm Special, So Special, I Gotta Have Some Of Your Attention, Give It To Me
--"Brass In Pocket", The Pretenders
Growing up, before even graduating from St. Rita's, before even entering into the 90's, I had three distinct sets of friends. First, you had the kids I hung around with from school. These were the guys like Tommy, John, Paul, and Phillip. You could even include all the kids from the block that I paled around with since the only reason I hung around them was because I visited Tommy so much. Next you had my cousins, who I practically saw every weekend since they've always been only a twenty-minute car ride from the parents from. Lastly, you had Penete and Jackie.
I know I've mentioned Jackie more than once here, but Stephanie, or Penete, was also somebody that I saw a lot of. The two of them were the daughters of one of my dad's closest friends so you could be sure that if there was ever a party that involved my dad's friends, the two of them would be there too. Even when there wasn't an actual gathering, I can remember plenty of weekends where my dad would drive Francis and I down to Penete's parents house. Once there, we'd play something, whether it was video games or plain 'ole board games. Indeed, I think part of my love for board game stems from all the crazy hours we spent playing Speed Connect Four, whereby you weren't allowed to hold your piece more than a second from when the previous player dropped his last one. The four of us--me, my brother, and the two girls--kind of fell into the habit of just being around each other often. Initially, I thought we just got lumped together because our dads just liked hanging out together, but it didn't take more than those first few instances to realize I generally liked hanging out with the both of them.
I can still remember somewhere in 1988 the two of them coming over and bringing Goonies II for the old Nintendo Entertainment System and the four of us spending all afternoon and a few hours into the evening beating it in one sitting. I loved the fact that it took the four of our brains to puzzle through all six or eight hours of that great game. But I also loved the feeling of being part of that collective, where it didn't feel pressured to be myself in front of them. I mean--with my school friends I acted one way, more out there and less personal, because even though I was close with them, they didn't feel like family to me. And with my cousins, because they were family and I saw them all the time, there were certain rituals that we performed because we'd always performed them. I've always deferred to my cousin V.J. and I've always treated my cousin Vincent almost like a younger sibling. To act outside of these specific roles still is very uncomfortable for me. However, since Penete and Jackie weren't school friends I didn't have to portray myself as being something I wasn't; there wasn't the acting a certain way to be "cooler" in front of them. And because they weren't my cousins there were no pre-defined roles set for us. Plenty of occasions I remember thinking how Stephanie was the oldest of the four of us, but she didn't take to the role like VJ did when it was the other four of us. When it was the four cousins we used to joke that VJ was the "leader" because he naturally took to the task of deciding what we were going to do next. When it was myself, Francis, Penete, and Jackie, we all pretty much functioned as a group. I think when the two girls came over or when Francis and I went over there, it was the best of both worlds. They were friends who we basically treated as family.
I remember other stuff too.
I remember the fishing trips we used to take with them.
I remember the camping trips we took (and there were a lot of those).
And I remember several of the times we would go to McDonald's or wherever, when the parents would sit at one table and the "kids" would sit at another table. And I remember the one time Penete started playing the game of Simon with her food--adding one bite of something new while remembering each bite that had come before it. I remember laughing so hard when after fry-cheeseburger-soda-soda-cheeseburger-cheeseburger-fry-cheeseburger-fry-soda, she couldn't remember the sequence again to add one more step.
Some of my best times as a kid were associated with those two crazy girls.
----
I think it all started falling apart around the time I entered high school. Like many things, being a teenager screwed up almost every relationship I had at the time. I cut off all contact with my friends from St. Rita's. I started hanging out with a different set of school friends. I started spending even more time with my cousins.
There never was a conscious choice to remove them from my life, not like my other friends. With people like Tommy and John, I knew I would never see them regularly. We were going to different high schools in various cities and I wasn't motivated to stay in touch with them across city lines. But the girls I could have still seen if I wanted to. I remember plenty of times my dad inviting Francis and I to go over to see them in North Hollywood where they lived. Just as I remember plenty of times saying no because of some stupid feeling that I was too old to be hanging out with them. It was like my feelings towards them never changed, but my attitude towards whether or not it was kosher to have childhood friends once you move into some semblance of adulthood changed.
There simply wasn't enough incentive to remain in touch with either of them not because they had suddenly morphed into bad people, but because I was under the misconception that an individual goes through epochs. You went through your childhood, your teenage years, and your adulthood. Each age had their own set of priorities, their own set of living conditions, their own set of rules, and, of course, their own set of friends. And never the twain should meet. I've always felt like that. I've always felt like everything had to fit into their roles. It's why I didn't often let my school friends meet my cousins, or why I still don't let my Bally's friends meet my Eclipse friends. I'm a person who needs to be able to distinguish where everything belongs... and I guess I've always been a person who needs to know how best to fit in wherever he goes.
I guess it's now safe to say as well that I didn't know how to rectify where Penete and Jackie fit into the scheme of my new social life. Back at St. Rita's it was easy to hang out with my friends there when I was there and with the girls on the weekends or on those occasional nights where my dad would take us over there during the week. At La Salle I had more extracurricular activities that ran well into the weekend. I would go on retreats (and later lead them). I would hang out with my friends from there on the weekends more. And eventually all of us started driving around during the times my dad would want us to hang out with my godfather and his daughters. So, yeah, the impulse to see them never actually waned, but the impulse to try to squeeze them into my schedule did.
In some ways I was afraid of the world at large knowing that I was still friends with people I knew since I was like six or something. It's a ridiculous thought now since I've known Breanne over half her life, but back in high school I thought it was better to be thought of as someone who didn't hang onto his childhood friends like one would hang onto a stuffed animal one used to go to bed with as a kid. I wanted to be thought of as someone who was able to escape childhood and able to put away childish things. Unfortunately, Penete and Jackie got lumped into this group for no other reason than they had the misfortune of getting to know me at the beginning of my life instead of somewhere in the middle of it. It's ridiculous to think of now, but I'm no longer in touch with any of the friends I had pre-1989. And if you really want to get technical about it, I'm no longer in touch with any of the friends I had pre-1992. As of right now, Breanne's my oldest friend and I met her in July of 1993.
Yet I can't stop thinking of anyone who was ever my friend during those years before 1993, the ones who I had no reason to ditch were Stephanie and Jackie.
They weren't like Peter and Dan, who in the last few years made me feel ostracized and out of the loop with them.
They weren't like Paul and Phillip, who seemed to want to forget me as much as I wanted to forget them.
They weren't like Jina, who I made the mistake of being attracted to and totally mishandled the aftermath.
And they weren't like all the other acquaintances from my various schools, jobs, activities, sports teams, or what have you who were never really that close to me to begin with.
They were just fun to be with, fun to talk to, fun to spend time with, and fun to say I was friends with. And I rewarded that kind of quality friendship by intentionally drifting apart from them, intentionally shying away from any opportunity to accidentally bump into them, intentionally being a dick and treating them as if they were dead to me.
----
I think I saw them only twice after I graduated from high school:
At Francis' graduation party in 1995, when I talked to Jackie a little bit.
And at Jackie's funeral service, where I was so numb and shocked that I don't think I spoke to anyone in their family at all.
-----
I saw Stephanie (the name I should have been calling her all along, but she'll always be Penete) at my grandmother's funeral this past weekend. And damn it all if I didn't try avoiding her there too. From not looking at her in the food line or from across the chapel, I was still in the habit of pretending that I had never spent time with her or that I had never known her once upon a time. And damn it all if she didn't make the first step in greeting me after the lunch.
And damn it all if the old familiar way of speaking to her didn't come flooding back.
We exchanged e-mails and (LOL) talked about finding each other on Facebook and Twitter. I have high hopes that, if anything, I can forge something out of the ashes of the friendship we used to have. After all, I told her about this blog in passing, which is a sure sign that I'm going to be writing something about her in the near future. I never tell anyone about this blog, not anyone that counts at any rate. But somehow I want her to see this. I want her to know what a stupid ass I was to shut her out of my life like I did.
Sometimes the hardest thing to decide is when to walk away from a person because they're just not what you need or want right now. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish when someone has outlived their usefulness in your life.
However, I think it's hardest to admit when you've made a mistake in walking away from someone in the first place. I know I've been guilty of pulling the trigger on ending friendships more than once, but in most cases there's some inciting incident as to why. With Stephanie I couldn't even begin to point on one transgression she ever did me to cause me to lose touch with her like I did. I can fully admit right now that I would have been better off staying in touch with her than breaking all ties like I did.
I can only hope that she sees in me something worth salvaging as much as I see something in her worth salvaging.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Growing up, before even graduating from St. Rita's, before even entering into the 90's, I had three distinct sets of friends. First, you had the kids I hung around with from school. These were the guys like Tommy, John, Paul, and Phillip. You could even include all the kids from the block that I paled around with since the only reason I hung around them was because I visited Tommy so much. Next you had my cousins, who I practically saw every weekend since they've always been only a twenty-minute car ride from the parents from. Lastly, you had Penete and Jackie.I know I've mentioned Jackie more than once here, but Stephanie, or Penete, was also somebody that I saw a lot of. The two of them were the daughters of one of my dad's closest friends so you could be sure that if there was ever a party that involved my dad's friends, the two of them would be there too. Even when there wasn't an actual gathering, I can remember plenty of weekends where my dad would drive Francis and I down to Penete's parents house. Once there, we'd play something, whether it was video games or plain 'ole board games. Indeed, I think part of my love for board game stems from all the crazy hours we spent playing Speed Connect Four, whereby you weren't allowed to hold your piece more than a second from when the previous player dropped his last one. The four of us--me, my brother, and the two girls--kind of fell into the habit of just being around each other often. Initially, I thought we just got lumped together because our dads just liked hanging out together, but it didn't take more than those first few instances to realize I generally liked hanging out with the both of them.
I can still remember somewhere in 1988 the two of them coming over and bringing Goonies II for the old Nintendo Entertainment System and the four of us spending all afternoon and a few hours into the evening beating it in one sitting. I loved the fact that it took the four of our brains to puzzle through all six or eight hours of that great game. But I also loved the feeling of being part of that collective, where it didn't feel pressured to be myself in front of them. I mean--with my school friends I acted one way, more out there and less personal, because even though I was close with them, they didn't feel like family to me. And with my cousins, because they were family and I saw them all the time, there were certain rituals that we performed because we'd always performed them. I've always deferred to my cousin V.J. and I've always treated my cousin Vincent almost like a younger sibling. To act outside of these specific roles still is very uncomfortable for me. However, since Penete and Jackie weren't school friends I didn't have to portray myself as being something I wasn't; there wasn't the acting a certain way to be "cooler" in front of them. And because they weren't my cousins there were no pre-defined roles set for us. Plenty of occasions I remember thinking how Stephanie was the oldest of the four of us, but she didn't take to the role like VJ did when it was the other four of us. When it was the four cousins we used to joke that VJ was the "leader" because he naturally took to the task of deciding what we were going to do next. When it was myself, Francis, Penete, and Jackie, we all pretty much functioned as a group. I think when the two girls came over or when Francis and I went over there, it was the best of both worlds. They were friends who we basically treated as family.
I remember other stuff too.
I remember the fishing trips we used to take with them.
I remember the camping trips we took (and there were a lot of those).
And I remember several of the times we would go to McDonald's or wherever, when the parents would sit at one table and the "kids" would sit at another table. And I remember the one time Penete started playing the game of Simon with her food--adding one bite of something new while remembering each bite that had come before it. I remember laughing so hard when after fry-cheeseburger-soda-soda-cheeseburger-cheeseburger-fry-cheeseburger-fry-soda, she couldn't remember the sequence again to add one more step.
Some of my best times as a kid were associated with those two crazy girls.
----
I think it all started falling apart around the time I entered high school. Like many things, being a teenager screwed up almost every relationship I had at the time. I cut off all contact with my friends from St. Rita's. I started hanging out with a different set of school friends. I started spending even more time with my cousins.
There never was a conscious choice to remove them from my life, not like my other friends. With people like Tommy and John, I knew I would never see them regularly. We were going to different high schools in various cities and I wasn't motivated to stay in touch with them across city lines. But the girls I could have still seen if I wanted to. I remember plenty of times my dad inviting Francis and I to go over to see them in North Hollywood where they lived. Just as I remember plenty of times saying no because of some stupid feeling that I was too old to be hanging out with them. It was like my feelings towards them never changed, but my attitude towards whether or not it was kosher to have childhood friends once you move into some semblance of adulthood changed.
There simply wasn't enough incentive to remain in touch with either of them not because they had suddenly morphed into bad people, but because I was under the misconception that an individual goes through epochs. You went through your childhood, your teenage years, and your adulthood. Each age had their own set of priorities, their own set of living conditions, their own set of rules, and, of course, their own set of friends. And never the twain should meet. I've always felt like that. I've always felt like everything had to fit into their roles. It's why I didn't often let my school friends meet my cousins, or why I still don't let my Bally's friends meet my Eclipse friends. I'm a person who needs to be able to distinguish where everything belongs... and I guess I've always been a person who needs to know how best to fit in wherever he goes.
I guess it's now safe to say as well that I didn't know how to rectify where Penete and Jackie fit into the scheme of my new social life. Back at St. Rita's it was easy to hang out with my friends there when I was there and with the girls on the weekends or on those occasional nights where my dad would take us over there during the week. At La Salle I had more extracurricular activities that ran well into the weekend. I would go on retreats (and later lead them). I would hang out with my friends from there on the weekends more. And eventually all of us started driving around during the times my dad would want us to hang out with my godfather and his daughters. So, yeah, the impulse to see them never actually waned, but the impulse to try to squeeze them into my schedule did.
In some ways I was afraid of the world at large knowing that I was still friends with people I knew since I was like six or something. It's a ridiculous thought now since I've known Breanne over half her life, but back in high school I thought it was better to be thought of as someone who didn't hang onto his childhood friends like one would hang onto a stuffed animal one used to go to bed with as a kid. I wanted to be thought of as someone who was able to escape childhood and able to put away childish things. Unfortunately, Penete and Jackie got lumped into this group for no other reason than they had the misfortune of getting to know me at the beginning of my life instead of somewhere in the middle of it. It's ridiculous to think of now, but I'm no longer in touch with any of the friends I had pre-1989. And if you really want to get technical about it, I'm no longer in touch with any of the friends I had pre-1992. As of right now, Breanne's my oldest friend and I met her in July of 1993.
Yet I can't stop thinking of anyone who was ever my friend during those years before 1993, the ones who I had no reason to ditch were Stephanie and Jackie.
They weren't like Peter and Dan, who in the last few years made me feel ostracized and out of the loop with them.
They weren't like Paul and Phillip, who seemed to want to forget me as much as I wanted to forget them.
They weren't like Jina, who I made the mistake of being attracted to and totally mishandled the aftermath.
And they weren't like all the other acquaintances from my various schools, jobs, activities, sports teams, or what have you who were never really that close to me to begin with.
They were just fun to be with, fun to talk to, fun to spend time with, and fun to say I was friends with. And I rewarded that kind of quality friendship by intentionally drifting apart from them, intentionally shying away from any opportunity to accidentally bump into them, intentionally being a dick and treating them as if they were dead to me.
----
I think I saw them only twice after I graduated from high school:
At Francis' graduation party in 1995, when I talked to Jackie a little bit.
And at Jackie's funeral service, where I was so numb and shocked that I don't think I spoke to anyone in their family at all.
-----
I saw Stephanie (the name I should have been calling her all along, but she'll always be Penete) at my grandmother's funeral this past weekend. And damn it all if I didn't try avoiding her there too. From not looking at her in the food line or from across the chapel, I was still in the habit of pretending that I had never spent time with her or that I had never known her once upon a time. And damn it all if she didn't make the first step in greeting me after the lunch.
And damn it all if the old familiar way of speaking to her didn't come flooding back.
We exchanged e-mails and (LOL) talked about finding each other on Facebook and Twitter. I have high hopes that, if anything, I can forge something out of the ashes of the friendship we used to have. After all, I told her about this blog in passing, which is a sure sign that I'm going to be writing something about her in the near future. I never tell anyone about this blog, not anyone that counts at any rate. But somehow I want her to see this. I want her to know what a stupid ass I was to shut her out of my life like I did.
Sometimes the hardest thing to decide is when to walk away from a person because they're just not what you need or want right now. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish when someone has outlived their usefulness in your life.
However, I think it's hardest to admit when you've made a mistake in walking away from someone in the first place. I know I've been guilty of pulling the trigger on ending friendships more than once, but in most cases there's some inciting incident as to why. With Stephanie I couldn't even begin to point on one transgression she ever did me to cause me to lose touch with her like I did. I can fully admit right now that I would have been better off staying in touch with her than breaking all ties like I did.
I can only hope that she sees in me something worth salvaging as much as I see something in her worth salvaging.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Labels: communication, Friendship, Jackie, Penete, The Pretenders
posted by mojo shivers @ 12:20 AM
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