Friendships

This is a post that I originally intended to run last week but computer problems prevented me from doing so. You see, I'm taking a creative writing class and we're supposed to blog at least once a week. I've been making a conscious effort to keep up with it and I hope the lateness of this post isn't held against me. As I said, it was something that couldn't be helped but we'll see what happens.
I was originally going to post a blog featuring some of my random observations regarding celebrity death in light of the recent and shocking death of Heath Ledger. In the midst of getting my thoughts together on that subject I decided to take on another one instead, the subject of longterm friendships. I promise (or maybe it's a threat) to follow through on my feelings about celebrity death at a later date.
What made me think of friendships you might ask? Well, for one thing I don't have many of them. I've spent my entire life trying to connect with the world and making new and lasting friendships but as each year passes by it seems that the world needs and wants what I have to offer less and less. This may not be true in reality, it could be just the way I see things but nevertheless it is the way I feel.
I'm a loner for the most part but not by choice. Even though I have a few frienships I still feel isolated and out of place most of the time. Maybe I just have a chemical imbalance or something. Maybe it's because my love life is a joke. I really don't know. It's not that I hate my own company or can't stand to be alone. On the contrary, I enjoy solitude to a certain degree but I feel there has to be a balance or else one may lose their zest for life. I've heard some folks say they fear solitude even more than death and even though I can't quite say that I share the sentiment I can certainly understand it.
Now, back to the subject of my friends. I have three friends that I see on a fairly regular basis and all three of these folks have one thing in common. I've known all of them for a number of years. Two of them I've known almost twenty and one of them I've known for twenty six.
There is something nice about friends who have known you a long time. There is an unspoken history of memories and shared experiences that you draw on when the present world starts to get you down. My friend David was eleven years old when I met him in the fall of 1982. Now we are fast approaching the big 40. David and I have a lot of history beginning with our days in junior high school and continuing on through high school. We continued to be friends until our five high school anniversary and then we lost touch. Fate threw us a curve when we wound up at the same traffic light on a gloomy looking November Sunday evening late last year. We pulled over, exchanged numbers, and have been in touch ever since. Hardly a week goes by when we don't touch base and usually we wind up taking in a film together at some point. It's true that our lives took somewhat different turns and yet I've always treasured our friendship. I always felt like he was the brother I never had all through our school years together and even though time has passed and we have changed, our friendship still feels the same. It's nice to have friends like these.
And then there's my friend Sam and my friend Tara. They both serve their purpose in my life and have been with me in some way, shape, or form for nearly two decades. Sam loves exercise and cheesy pop music while Tara is big fan of intelligent cinema. These two individuals allow to indulge my passions on these subjects, something that I was never able to adequately accomplish with my family.
I'm not sure what I'm trying to say other than the fact that it seems harder to make new and lasting friendships. So maybe if the world is so plugged into technology that it's forgotten how to listen, maybe having friends that share a history is the best we can hope for.