Fragile

One of my best friends is gone. Not dead, not harmed nothing like that. Just gone. We had developed a very intense friendship over IM. We got introduced from a mutual friend and our initial interest was biking. From there it went to everything from coffee, tea, sex, marriage, jacking off, fitness, food, and weather. Too many things to count.

At some point it turned sour. Im the first to admit that come winter I'm not a fun person to be around. I hate winter, as I've mentioned before, and it makes me irritated and mad. And there were some hints that IM was a waste of time, but then there was nothing, just as if this guy popped out of existence. No response to email, no response to IM or anything. It was sad but I just left it alone.

I was cleaning out my website the other day and found a link where I had written down all the cool things we would do when he came out to visit the west coast. Bike rides, restaurants, hikes, etc. I decided to look him up and found he had started a blog right "next door." His wife is pregnant and there was all sorts of bloggish blathering. I read almost the whole thing and then commented. I said congrats on the daddy-dom and whats up with the disappearing act? I got this response: "I disappeared because my time is limited. Not yet a daddy."

Well I sure hope he didn't waste too much time creating that response.

It strikes me that no matter what we think about our friends, friendship is very fragile. At any moment for any reason, it just blows away in the wind. People change, situations change, things change and its gone, in a puff of smoke. Last night, in bed, I held my wife's hand and said "at least what we have is not fragile." She profoundly agreed and kissed me goodnight.