Andrew Bosley (Written in 2003)

From what I can remember, Andrew Bosley and I were true friends. Our friendship, though short, was most likely the most genuine off any friendship I had during those years of early elementary school. Andrew was genuine. He was quiet, pensive you might say. Andrew and I used to talk about meaningful things, not about guns or cartoons or popularity or girls. Maybe girls, but I can't say for sure now. I don't remember what we talked about but I recall that it felt the same as those dorm room talks that wander from subject to subject as if touring the academic programs available at a liberal arts university. When Andrew and I hung out, it felt fulfilling, inspiring, grounding. It felt real. He was the kind of child that would tell you he was sad and he didn't know why. He was the kind of boy that would tell you how proud he was of his Mom's garden. Even in first grade he was that kind of person. I used to admire and resent that about him.

But, if my memory serves me, I feel like I kept our friendship a semi-secret from my "other" friends, my popular friends. Could I have actually gotten on the bus with him to go to his house after school and still somehow guarded our friendship? Yes, I think it is possible. We might only have been friends for a season or a year and I have always been sneaky and heartless like that. The only "popular" girl that rode his bus was Celena Real, the prettiest girl in our grade and I didn't know her well. I have never disavowed intrigue and double cross entirely. I am still a realist in affairs international and otherwise.

Then came my birthday party, I believe my sixth birthday. I didn't invite Andrew. It seemed strange to my parents and surely to his as well. It was hard for me not to invite Andrew, but I rationalized that we would be playing baseball at the party and Andrew was horrible at baseball and might embarrass himself or, surely more importantly in my own mind, me. And it would have been difficult for me to play host if he had come. He wasn't friends with those other boys. In the days leading up to my birthday party, even up the moment it started, my Mom kept asking me if I still didn't want to invite Andrew.

Home

I came home yesterday.
All the way home from a million miles away.
I took me about 12 hours from the begining of the journey to the end.
I'll be home for a few days, it seems important.
It took me all these years to come home again.
And though so much about my home has changed, it hasn't changed nearly as much as have I.
Home is supposed to be like that, I guess.