I Miss My Friends

I have a very blurred recollection of watching the last episode of Cheers 10 years ago. It is only unclear due to the amount of alcohol consumed while sitting around on that Thursday night. I was in college and we had a mini-party – only 25 or so of our closest friends. We were all drinking heavily and having a pretty good time laughing at Rebecca marrying the plumber and Woody winning a city council seat. I’m pretty sure it was a lot of fun. A few days later I saw one of my very good friends’ girlfriend, now his wife, and she apologized for them running out so fast after the show ended. I honestly didn’t recall their exit. She said that he, Andy, had gotten very emotional because he saw himself graduating soon and leaving behind his friendships. That was the premise of that last episode – friends going in their own direction. And apparently it was more than my friend could handle.

I miss my friends.

Tonight, on my answering machine I received this message: “You have an answering machine? I can’t believe it. It is I – you know who. I’m just calling cause I haven’t talked to you in a while. Anyway, enjoy! Talk to you – bye.”
I do know who it is and we don’t talk enough. Strangely enough I told a story today about his father – he is full of stories. I miss him too. Hopefully, soon enough, I will see both of them.

I don’t intend this to seem depressing. I do miss my friends but I accept that this is the kind of path that life seems to take. I don’t live down the street from all of my friends like I did in High School. I don’t live with a bunch of friends like I did in college. And vacations are more and more difficult to coordinate with children and vacation days. I am just trying to say that I wish I could spend more time with these people. Heck, that’s a positive thing.

I miss my friends.

Tonight I watched most of the last episode of Friends. I did not tune in on the night of its original airing and I probably would not have watched it tonight if the Reds game hadn’t ended quickly. But I watched it nonetheless. I knew Ross and Rachel would get together – who didn’t? Chandler and Monica deserved a baby and twins were a nice touch – Phoebe had three. And by the way, where in the hell was Emma? You know, Rachel’s daughter. Was she hanging out at the coffee shop by herself? The show was not as great as Cheers or MASH or All In The Family or Seinfeld. And certainly not better than one of my personal favorites, The Andy Griffith Show. But obviously it struck a chord in me and now I am writing all of this down for everyone to see. These six characters and actors have been together for ten years and now they have to say goodbye to each other. That has to be difficult. I can honestly say that I have had friends for more than twenty-five years, and I don’t think I could ever say goodbye to them.

Because I miss them.

During lunch today I had a conversation with my co-worker, a.k.a. brother-in-law, about a few guys that I used to see quite often – Ken, Tom, David, Mike, Scotty, Brian. When asked why I didn’t see much of them anymore, I couldn’t give him a direct answer. There really hasn’t been a fight that caused a fallout. No one decided they didn’t want talk to one another. Life just changes and times are spent differently. Maybe spouses don’t understand where those friendships come from or children aren’t old enough to comprehend them. That’s just the way life goes sometimes. But if anyone reading this knows Ken or Tom or David or whoever, don’t be afraid to drop them a line and say hello from me.

I miss my friends.

My father once made the comment to my now-wife that you may have to break a leg in order to get in with our group. In one respect, that makes it seem as if we don’t like outsiders. But that was not what he meant. I am very happy to belong to what has always been a very close-knit group of friends. They have more than accepted my wife – I think, actually, they have pitied her. They know me well enough to understand much of what I put my wife through. They have been putting up with my ramblings much longer than she and I’m sure they all hope this shit will end soon. But it really doesn’t matter to me.

I still miss my friends.