corner

I have this friend... I met her when I was 13. I can remember the first day I met her like it was yesterday. My mom drove me up to her house, and I can remember my first thought was, "She's so pretty...She'll never want to be my friend." Way to exhibit high self-esteem! However, my initial reaction proved to be inaccurate, for this girl who had just moved from Minnesota fastly became one of my closest friends.

One of our favorite things to do was to wander around our neighborhood at night. For a while, this didn't fly too well with the parents. They didn't like not knowing where we were, especially after dark. However, as we got older, this became less and less of an issue. There was something about night time that attracted us to it... I'm not sure what it was exactly, but it seemed that's when we were most alive. There would be nights where we'd ride our bikes around the neighborhood, enjoying the warm summer wind as we rode around. Some nights, we'd take on the neighborhood by foot, methodically soaking in the evening atmosphere. We even made a game of visiting "the house" - a house in our neighborhood where two mysterious boys lived. We created a story about who they were and what they were doing- a story that lived on for many years!

However, the place we spent a lot of time was on the corner across the street from my house. Beneath the lamplight is where we had some of our most serious conversations. To this day, I'm not sure I've ever met someone with whom I've shared as much with as this friend of mine. I could share my most ridiculous dreams with her, and she never once discouraged me from them. She would validate the way I thought, the way I saw the world, and my desire for the future... for she shared those dreams too. We often saw things the same way and took comfort in knowing we could be ourselves.

As we got older, it became harder to see those similarities... We grew up, discovered our identities, had different struggles, and began to go in different directions. I went off to college while she decided to join the world of working people. I came home from college, and she went off to war. We rarely see each other these days, but I still consider her to be one of the best friends I've ever had...

Tonight, I was reminded of those nights we spent on the corner, talking about what our dreams were and where we saw ourselves in the future. I'm sure neither of us would have ever imagined the place we are in life right now. As I sat on the corner tonight, taking a picture of where we sat wondering about what was next to come, I began to think about what's next to come with me. When I was thirteen, I imagined myself somewhere completely different than where I am now. As I sat there tonight, at the age of 26, I wondered where I'd be in another 13 years...

I miss the days of sitting on that corner...