Letter to an Old Friend

(a bit of intro: t.s. is one of my friends i grew up with...i think i've known t. longer than anyone i've known outside my relatives...walker i've known a couple years less, though t. and i haven't really kept in touch much the last few years and walker and i have. t. and i were roommates my first year of college, then that following fall he got married to a really great person, had a kid within a year, and we kept in touch a little but it eventually slid. now he works in insurance, has a couple kids anyway, recently t. called me and we've talked a couple times...and today i decided to email him. i could tell a million background stories and provide a ton of information but i don't have that kind of time or finger energy, so here's the an excerpt from the email, because it got someone ramblish and i know i post that sorta thing here.)

anyway, yeah...i'm not sure how soon i'll get to be in south bend again. i haven't really mapped out my fall too much...christmas i'm planning just to spend around here. i'm thinking maybe around thanksgiving i'm going to hit the south for a few days, visit my sister and brother-in-law and their baby that should be a few months old by then...maybe someone i know a couple hours away. that'll definitely put the budget at needing to hang out here for christmas, hehe. yeah, if there were some "reunion" this year i definitely couldn't be making it and really not next year, either. when the 10 year actually rolls around in what, 3 years...who knows. i'm actually a good bit different than high school and earlier college days, that's for sure. i guess where most people are pretty cool with going with what's going on, continuing where they've been going generally all their lives and whatever--and don't get me wrong, man...i envy that in some ways, i think it's great and that's how it's supposed to be for a lot of people...i've done a lot of seeking and searching and exploring. i can't even really relate to anything resembling how we grew up anymore, really...yet at the same time, constantly struggle with the things that were more or less implanted in us. i'm not explaining well at all, i'm sure, and here i'm supposedly the writer. oh well. anyway, i know that in h.s. and early college i was the dorky kid who never really made waves, got in a little trouble but was pretty passive, didn't outwardly question too much or get in faces, went along with the flow and stuff. but all along...starting in late elementary and jr. high, i just knew something was off. at least for me. i had questions that i dare not ask, paths i knew were out there but didn't even know how to find. it's like there was always something gnawing on me but i knew that until there was something more definite to follow, a way to question other than the usual teenage rebellion, i was just there to experience. so i just went along and cruised and didn't care about much, but experienced a lot, i guess. a year or so ago, i went through this period where i was really pissed off and felt like we all got really ripped off as kids. i still think we were but at the same time, i don't think most of it was purposeful...people were just following, themselves, not trying to lead us anywhere on their own. i guess i felt bad, too, looking at potential. i know i did pretty well in school, but it was mostly because i managed to learn on my own. i'm a visual learner, i don't learn well by listening at all...and so i just read a lot and wrote a lot of notes. other people weren't so lucky and had other styles of learning...for example, you're a very intelligent person, man...i always knew you were smart. but because we were locked into this certain mindset and style of teaching, you and others got really screwed. but i mean...why be mad about it? that's life, i guess. anyway, that's more or less indicative of things, not the issue as a whole. i'm rambling quite a bit at this point, anyway...i guess all i'm saying is that i've learned there's a ton more out there to explore that God created for us to explore, other ways to think, other ways to live. to be more specific, one example is that israel and pretty much all of the Bible took place and was written out of an Eastern and middle eastern thought, yet we in the West can't see it that way and automatically place our western culture and lock everything into that as opposed to trying to think the way they did. anyway, i know i'm being vague and i'm sorry if most of this makes no sense, it's my fault. i guess all i'm trying to say is that whenever reunion takes place and if i'm there, it'll be interesting to see how it all goes, because i've changed a ton since the days most of those people remember me from. it's weird to think about all of us "grown up" (at least agewise) now but that happens. i feel bad for the kids nowadays, it's gotta really suck to be growing up in all this crap but you know those 10 and 20 years older than us said the same things.