It was a long day at work. It wasn't hard. It was just long. I felt as though I was in a haze the entire shift. I couldn't hit a single IV to save my soul. I couldn't interact with patients like usual. I was just......blah. I just wanted to get home so I could ride my bike. I knew it would do me some good to get outside and ride a little bit. It was the perfect cure to my haze. The sun was shining. The temperature was perfect. Kids were giggling and screaming in the background static of a suburban neighborhood. Birds were chirping. People were out running and biking. It was perfect.
As I rode, my mind cleared. (Despite being out of breath) I didn't concentrate so much on beating a slight incline with my out of shape body. I started to concoct a funny blog about the homeless again (another blog, perhaps). As I rode through my old neighborhood, I ran into an old friend whom I had literally grown up with almost my entire life. I stopped to talk to him. It had been years since I had talked with him face to face. It was a somewhat eery experience. Not in a bad way. It was like looking into the face of a past long buried but not forgotten. Our conversation only lasted 20 minutes, but it was overwhelming to hear of the life he had led since I had last talked to him. I heard about old friends and old classmates, the routes they took, and some whose lives had tragically ended. My old friend had a bit of a hard time himself but made it out and was getting it together. I was speechless hearing his stories. In my mind, I see him and these people he spoke of as the people I remember in high school. Their younger faces and mannerisms still in my mind as they were 6 years ago. It was hard for me to believe how much had changed. How much time had gone by. I felt as though the world kept moving while I stayed in place in the comfort of my own home.
He was very much as I remembered him. General same sense of humor. General same pattern of speech. Just almost the same person. Something was different. I couldn't place my finger on it. Maybe it was the awkwardness of catching up. Who knows. I was just happy to see him. In his face, I was brought back to years of childhood memories all the way up till I was 16 when we gradually drifted apart. But it was the decade of memories that clouded my senses. All I could feel was a mix happiness, a sense of regret for not having been a better friend back then, and a sense of closure. I often wondered about my old friends and others I used to know. But you can never really guess where life could lead them.
I guess we all learn life lessons differently. It's all a matter of perspective, really. We all come to our personal philosophies and triumphs the hard way. Through hard times, bad decisions, and even pure bad luck. We can call that a victory in the end, if we so chose. We can win the hard way. We can lose just as hard and still come to the same amount of strength and philosophy.
I learned we can never really set out to be something. We just have to let life lead us and take it's course. Our hopes and dreams fabricate delusions of what we think we should be but not what's realistically possible. Our hopes and dreams don't take into account for what real life is and how harsh and ugly it can be. Our hopes and dreams don't take into account the people we will meet and change us to one direction or the other. All we see is this gloriously ideal end picture where things turn out the way we want. The way they are supposed to.
The truth of the matter is, not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up.
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