blast from the past...

last night, as i was getting ready to go to bed, i saw an old friend sign on to im... i think the last time i talked to him was right before i moved to the northwest... we were friends when i was in college... he was friends with the most long-term boyfriend i had in college (brad)... he was roommates with the guy i worked with at the christian bookstore... when i worked at the pharmacy, he came in for lunch... he even worked at the pharmacy after i didn't work there anymore... he co-wrote "me and the devil (just don't get along)" with tim...

tim worked at the pharmacy, too... tim and one of my roommates had been really good friends before i started at asu... and then i met him and was friends with him... it was college - the bcm at college, so everyone knew everyone else... so tim and i were friends... he even helped me with a project for my sociology of marriage and family class in writing a marriage contract... he and his roommates would come over and play scrabble games and spades... they played pranks on jenny (my roommate)... we were all friends...

one christmastime, i was housesitting and craig and tim came over and we went to the store and bought chicken nuggets and french fries (fajita fries) and green ketchup... then we ate and watched junkyard wars... it was that night that the interworkings of my nickname from them started - dirty minded retro robyn... which i think is going to be the next great superhero...

i was very comfortable in their friendship... i don't remember how long we were all friends... how many times we hung out... it seems like a lot, but it could have just been a semester or a year... when i went to china, a lot of things changed... tim was in love with molly and moving to indiana... and i was in a relationship, too...

i felt like anytime i went back, craig would be at the pharmacy... but then, after camp and right before i moved to the nw, i went to say hi... buddy had shut the grill down... and so craig wasn't there anymore... and i didn't even have his phone number... i think a pager number... and then, we lost touch... and i know it was mostly my fault... when i moved up here, that happened with a lot of people...

we may have talked a few times online since then, but i don't remember... last night we talked for an hour... i got caught up on all the jonesboro stuff - which is not much... sometimes i think that place is a bermuda triangle... and some days i really miss it... but once i get there, i'm ready to leave...

i guess i didn't realize until typing it all out how much their friendship really meant to me... we all had different stuff going on... but there was something great about the easiness of us... of hanging out... it all seems so blurred now...

something happened in the last few years... our lives have taken different routes completely... tim and molly are married, bought a house and are living in indianapolis... craig takes care of his brother who's on disability... his mom passed away... he's the glue holding his family together... and i live far away... i've finished graduate school and am looking at going back overseas... not that we were "kids" back then - but at some point over the last two years, we grew up...

it's just strange...

and on top of that... i found out that brad, in the last 2 years, has gotten married and divorced... which seems to be a running theme of the guys i've dated...

what a weird way to end a wednesday night...