It took me a minute to figure out how to approach this. In the end I settled on a nice weekend I spent with a dear friend in Chicago just weeks before I met Barbara. Ours had been a tumultuous friendship and that weekend felt like coming into a comforting calm. I still consider her a friend 22 years later, and I'm grateful for the growth I experienced through knowing her. While I don't know if she saw me as having "grown up" from the Young Sean she knew, I chose to write about this weekend from her perspective because it had the narrative structure I needed. And because I'd like to think she felt the same way about the weekend that I did. The biggest liberty I took was with the conversation snippet which I created. We may or may not have had a similar conversation. I've chosen not to use her name and I've changed the one name that I used in the story besides my own. But if she reads this, she'll know right away that I'm talking about her. I hope she remembers that September weekend of walking Chicago as fondly as I do and as I've imagined she did.
Well, Sean has just left and I must say it was an absolutely lovely weekend. I hadn't seen him in over a year though we did write intermittently while he was away. We talked on the phone a few times when he got back earlier this summer and I invited him to come out to see me in Chicago. I was really looking forward to seeing him, but wasn't quite sure what to expect. He's been a very dear friend since I met him in fall his freshman ad (and my senior) year of college. But as I've written about ad nauseam in these pages, our friendship has been fraught. A lot of ups and downs I guess you could say. And when I last saw him, things were, I guess kind of tense. I think he was angry with me, and me, well I was trying to be patient (and probably not succeeding very well). There's always been this weird sexual tension in our friendship. Sometimes I've felt it. More often he felt it. On a few occasions we both felt it at the same time and then things were always interesting.
He was so young. . .that's the thing that attracted me to him and also annoyed me about him. Every now and then I'd call him "Young Sean" which he might have found insulting. I only said it a few times, but he has no idea how often I called him that in my mind.
But this is all old news. Back to this weekend. He got here Friday night around 8 and it was so good to see him. He looked the same, for the most part. Maybe a little thinner (which is insane because he's already the skinniest guy I've ever known. Makes Todd look like Heavy D by comparison). But other than that, the same neatly trimmed goatee, same big, intelligent eyes, same full lips. Still very good-looking. But there was something different about him, though I couldn't say what. I hugged him for a long time and it felt so good just to be with him again.
We ate, went for a walk, looked at pictures from his mission experience, and talked late into the night. It was like old times--the best of the old times. From the first day I met him as a bright eyed freshman in the student center at the university campus, I found he was incredibly easy to talk to. He listened but he also had a lot to say, and not just talking about himself. He was available emotionally in a way that I hadn't found in very many of the the guys I'd dated. That hasn't changed, but something else has. Friday night I couldn't put my finger on it.
Saturday we slept late, had brunch at a great place near my apartment, and set out on a walk. That's mostly what we did this weekend. Walked. In my neighborhood, downtown, and along Lake Michigan. We walked all over Chicago, hand in hand, and talked. It was just so comfortable. And that was the first thing I realized. That after all the hot and cold, the euphoria and aggravation, the attraction and annoyance, the passion and tension, we were finally comfortable. It was, in a way, what I'd always wanted, what I'd hoped our friendship would be like and it was truly beautiful to finally get there after all we'd been through. I don't think he knew it at the time, but I think it's what he always wanted too. I think he knows it now though.
The second thing I realized was that the heat had cooled on his end if you will. I'll admit it stung a little, but only a little. Though I took his hand, leaned on his shoulder as we walked I no longer felt that tremble of boyish desire. He seemed content, which was not something I think he'd ever been before.
Late Sunday afternoon we ended up walking along Lake Michigan with the sun low in the west, flashing through the canyons of downtown Chicago on our left, and the light glinting on the lake to our right. He said he felt like he was done with the chase, a chase he'd been on since he was in middle school. Always there had been a girl he'd wanted and if there wasn't one, he was looking for one.
"You were one of those girls," he said.
"I know," I replied.
"But I'm at a point in my life where I feel like I'm just happy with myself. I don't need the chase anymore. My focus in going back to school is on my classes, my work at the Behavioral Science department, and my friendships. I've spent enough time wishing, wanting, hoping, praying. Now my plan is to live and be happy."
"You said friendships. Does that include me?"
"Of course it includes you. Always you." And he looked at me with those beautiful, soft brown eyes and smiled this open-hearted smile. He was completely at peace. And that's what when I knew. My young Sean wasn't so young any more. He had grown up. This young'un had arrived at the beginning of his journey as a man.
It made me really happy.
So earlier this evening he got in his Honda to go back to school. As I watched him drive away, the sounds of Seal's "Bring it On" emanating in a muffled melody from his car, I realized something else.
We would always be friends but it would never again be like it was. It left me a little sad, but also really proud. I didn't foresee that we might grow apart too, but in that moment I realized that was certain to happen. In fact, it already had.
I will miss the boy, but always care for, and be happy for, the man.
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