:: Closing Time ::

:: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 ::

I hope DeSantis reads this, because I don't really have any idea how else to get through to him. I don't know his current email address, he's not online, and he's going off to Denmark soon.

I read his blog, because I like him. He's a cool guy and an old friend, and he's commented on mine so I thought hey, let's see what he has to say. Well he brought up a couple of topics, one that I almost don't want to touch on but for a shade of my past I have to: the ever infamous Jessup Move.

Yup, two capital letters. Let's take you back to about 5th grade, a time where I had two very good friends. Everyone had sort of always been friends, but I made two very good friends - John Jessup and Chris DeSantis. Ironically enough, John and I were much better friends at the time than Chris and I, and in the end it ends up that John and I are the ones who haven't spoken in years, and yet Chris and I at the least saw each other in RSS every day for the past two (plus he was my captain on the team this year). But John and I were best friends in a time before Sasha (at least in my life). Well... no. John was my best friend, but Chris was his. I didn't know this at the time, or maybe I was in denial of the fact, or maybe I didn't care that I didn't have a best friend. Because I had two extremely good friends at any point in time, plus the other usual friends.... but two extremely good friends.

And yet, as almost always happens in threes, there was an outcast. Guess who it was, of course. Even if you looked at the three then, let alone who we've all become now, it was clear John and Chris would be the pairing if only from the fact that they were both the big men on campus. Physically. Chris likes to joke about the fact that as ripped as Jessup is now, he started lifting because he was pissed that Chris was naturally bigger than him. Chris grew at like the start of puberty, and was damn near six feet tall in about sixth grade. But they were the two biggest guys in the school, and good friends, so an obvious match. (BTW I'm not sure how true that lifting thing is w/ John; he never told me, but he always told Chris stuff he didn't tell me. All I know is once he started lifting he fell in love with it, especially as he got results. Ask anybody who's taken up regular excercise... that happens. It's great for your spirit) Anyhow. When the three of us were together... I was always just on the outside. And they had friends that I basically wasn't friends with because we just didn't really get to know each other for one reason or another. I don't think it was deliberate, but a good example is that I never knew John's girlfriends at all. During the time we were friends he went out with Lauren, Marissa, and Erica, and I never really knew any of them. I know all my friends' S/O's now, even my not so great friends.

So well.... in about seventh grade, a big story came up. The Jessups were moving to Pittsburgh. By the time the family told people Mr. Jessup had actually already gone, and he went to his new job and bought a house. Theorhetically, the rest of the family would move at the end of the summer. It never happened.

I'm not sure if Mr. Jessup was incapable of keeping a job, or whether he just had bad luck with who he worked with. From the times I met him I knew he was a really smart guy but he and John fought like my father and I fight. Your first reaction is that well, John and I are agressive people. I think actually though, I got the agression I have now from John. I've never realized it.... but I'm pretty sure it's true. Anyhow. I'm not sure if John got it from his father, but his father hated the job in Pittsburgh. I think he then moved to DC, and the Jessup move was postponed another year. Eventually he moved back to Texas (by now John Chris and I are not really friends... that kinda fell apart in high school, them going one way and me going another), and now apparantly to DC again. I got took a call from Mrs. Jessup the other day, who when I was friends with John became very good friends with my mother, and they've stayed friends. She wanted to talk to my mother before the move.... which goes down today. Because it's 3:24 AM, and the Jessups move today. Wow.

I didn't even think anything of it, because John and I aren't friends anymore and because well... the Jessups moving is a fucking myth. In my head, and I'm sure in Chris', it can't happen. We've stopped believing when we hear they're moving. Twice it was blocked by a job change, twice it was blocked by John and Katherine not wanting to spend their respective senior years at a new school. The Jessup Move can't happen. And yet today, it can.

I almost wish I'd talked to John. Maybe I will.... his mother has insisted I keep in some touch with her because she'll be just outside DC, and I'm in DC. She said I can store my computer there over the summer if I want. Things like that. I don't know what I'd say to him though. What's his life now? The only thing in it I know is Chris. He's got Caroline.... what freak chance is that. Those two didn't know each other at all, then decided to go out on a date and became a phenomenal couple of like a year and a half. But all I knew of Caroline was "Cam's girlfriend." Well, she's John's girlfriend now, and she's Caroline. But I don't know John anymore. I still feel like I should talk to my old best friend.

Chris is the person who has to read this, because Chris is the only person who will understand most of this. I wonder what Chris thought of times like when we went to the amusement park, and rides had seats in pairs and they sat together. I was alone for a moment. Or how sometimes they'd walk side by side and I was a bit behind. I was the runt of the friendship, but there was never any doubt that I was a friend. With John, that doubt was totally eliminated when we went to camp together, and when effectively the camp jackass/bully was giving me shit, John, one of the two biggest guys in our age group, layed down an ultimatum - stop fucking with him or I'm gonna break you in half. It worked. Packy was a jackass, and a bit bigger than me, but John would have dismantled him. He protected me because his size was an advantage I didn't have. He was a great friend for things like that.

Chris? Chris I had my doubts about. I never had a clue how good friends we were, or whether we were really friends at all except for John, and then he had a party. He invited a bunch of girls from Newton that he knew, and a couple of guys as well (my guess now that i think about it is that he swam with the guys and met the girls through them), and a few Wellesley people. I was one of them, and I was in no way an afterthought (at least by the timing of things). Chris and I started playing AD&D together around then.... and at that point, we were good friends. But the party was actually more of a turning point. Throughout the whole party I was never just there; I was as much a friend as anyone. And I met some cool people, and when one of them mentioned me to him he made sure I knew that she'd liked me. There was no bullshit. A great friend, but I wouldn't discover just how good a friend until Rice Street, and eventually swim team. There aren't words to express the impact Chris has had on my life. Nor John. Nor Sasha, or Natalie, or Matt, or Andrew, or Caitlin, or Ashley, or Kara. Or Drew. I must be missing somebody... I always am. But I just keep thinking of these people who have shaped me.

Oh yeah. Chris introduced me to Leviathan. Which at the time was Paradox II. Which..... some of you may know as "the mud."

The infamous mud, thief of a year of connect time and five years of my life.

So this blog turned away from Chris and John for a moment.... and away from the Jessup Move, which is less significant without the Chris and John thing. Chris blogged about and about going out.... and I realize, there never was a definitive end to us. I can't pinpoint when it ended, or remember one of the last things John and I, or John Chris and I did together (it really was never Chris and I). But I'll always have things that simply wouldn't have been a part of my life without them. Lifting, and all the technique I learned from John. Swimming, and the phenomenal influence Chris has been with his own determination to lead me to finally join the team. Silly shit. Like the World's Strongest Man competition.... at the time, I didn't get it, but we watched it at Chris' party. You know, the one I mentioned up there. I watched it with the really pretty asian girl who's name I don't remember right now. The one who liked me. William Lawrence camp. Thanks John.... it was a crazy experience, and I wish I could go back now and do it right. Things we discovered together... personal things. Things we talked about. The sleepovers with the talking... with the just telling each other stuff. Talking about life, and about people. There was never more honesty. Just the three of us... usually in John's room, but sometimes in my TV room. I don't remember one at Chris'. Great times.... even if I was the third in the group. I was in the group, friends I'll never forget.

I don't know where else to go from here. I wish I could once more just be in a room with John and Chris and just talk.... I wish I could once more be in a room with Matt and Sasha and Ashley and Kara and Liz. I wish I could once more be in a room with Jonathan and Jimmy and Kenny and Eric and Drew and Loaf and Kevin, and even Kainen. I wish I could have one more day each with the friends.... that I was friends with. I wish I could have one more day with the Swim Team, as recent as they were they were a phenomenal group that I just didn't have enough time with. My mistake. But as odd as I was, a first year senior, in a few short weeks there was no question I was part of the team.

I wish I could have one more day, each. John and Chris... won't happen, cause John and Chris won't even see each other until John comes back to Wellesley, and lord knows I won't see them then. Matt, Sasha, Ashley, Kara, and Liz? Well Kara and Liz aren't on speaking terms.... shit, Liz isn't on speaking terms with any of us. Matt and Ashley are still good friends. Sasha's still been seeing them occasionally. I wish I could. Great great people, poor fate that pulled us apart. Kara. God I miss Kara. She was always the unsung angel among us, unappreciated by most people for everything except the size of her fucking chest. She was beautiful, yes, but I absolutely loved her. I asked her out once.... and she said she wouldn't, but because I was asking her for the wrong reasons.

I wasn't, Kara. I wasn't.
:: Peter 4:34 AM [+] ::
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