The day I lost my first friends, the crushing feeling that I felt forever reverberated through my soul and heart. The crushing grip of certainty like a fist around my heart squeezed until I though I could walk no more. For one year I lived in this agony waiting, breathing, one slow breath. Just the hint of their return, just a moment of compassion of understanding that I had shown them time and time again. I had given everything to my friends; I had the ability to lie down in front of traffic for them. I remember the day I told my roommate after a late night phone call with my friend that I would leave school that very day to go to her if she had asked, thankfulness now rests with me that she did not. There was no obstacle I have not surmounted, no measure I have not met, and none that I would not have met for them had the need been there. The only time in my life I have been selfless and it is past and gone. The time that I needed something small, I was abandoned, and the time when I could have used all the support available I was alone. It was at this moment, that I solidified my past adventures and training into the completion of mind and body devoid of weakness. I stepped upon the plane with no regrets and a smile that can only come to those at peace.
For I recognized that though my view of whom my friends were had changed and though I had lost those that I loved unconditionally I had replaced them with a more powerful friends, those that loved me and I loved them not in unconditionally or out of some selfless infatuation but out of mutually achieved respect and desire. Out of a shared difficulties and trials. Out of pure ecstasy of the relationship, out of a sense of value that was worth my efforts. In the constant scales of balance their worth was more than I could pay at any time. These are the friends that would do anything for me, and in the end I watched some lay down their lives for others and me. Though this is not the true test of a mans worth in life, it sure can be used as a metric. In some form of irony fate has placed me face to face with a friend of my past, a friend that no longer recognizes me for I have changed so much. Though subconsciously I place my youthfulness out for her to see, so that she might be at ease, the man that I am now would not please those old friends, they would not approve. They would not like the horror that I have become, or what I am capable of. The process of my minds constant evaluation and adjustment, a constant analysis of the changing environment in which options are weighed and measured in a non-human way. The fact that once you have done things they become easier every time. Well damn it I want my sleeping bag back.
