Sometimes when I’m beyond tired (more tired than normal MS tired… like, can‘t focus, can’t move, have no motivation tired) I wander down memory lane. This is inevitably aided by the socials, and mostly FB, because that’s where I’m connected to all the people I used to know across my life.

Memory lane can be beautiful and nostalgic but it can also be painful.  Today I had two polar opposite experiences.  I was reminded of the death of a friend – far too young and now, twenty years ago.  I remember when it happened.  We’d fallen apart as friends because we were young and I’d moved away halfway through high school and boys and girls – in my experience – aren’t that good at keeping in touch when proximity is no longer a factor.  He died in a car accident near State College.  It was a gut punch.  Surreal.  Young people dying always is, but a young person that I knew ….  Harder to comprehend.  And I had no one to talk about it with because our friendship had been in those golden years of middle school.  That time before cell phones and hormones and all the complications that came later.  When we just played street hockey and had sleepovers and went sledding when it snowed.  He was the first person I told about getting tested for MS.  I remember that.  Anyway.  It was another gut punch moment, seeing the old newspaper article from the Daily Collegian re-posted by a mutual friend.  My mind wandered and I was back there for a moment, on Heather Hill, trudging through the woods, playing tag.  Standing in rollerblades telling him about my tests.  Life is crazy and surreal and here I am, twenty years later, married with two houses and a nice car.  And he didn’t have the opportunity to do any of that.  How is that fair?  How is that decided?  It shakes the foundations of humanity.

And then later – a simple ‘like’ by an old college roommate.  Someone I haven’t seen or spoken to in over a decade …. Memories of college flooding back, smiling at our shared history and how sharply our lives diverged following Penn State.  How we are virtual strangers to each other now, our bond that brief period of time we shared at that formative time in life.

Both men I’m glad I knew back then.  Such a strange juxtaposition.

Xox, g