Friends – Page 5 – Sam's Online Journal

October 6, 2014

A Meaningful Death

“I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.” ~Corazon Aquino

I realized this past week that I can die, and I don’t mean in the sense that anyone who is born will eventually die, but in the sense that a bus can hit me tomorrow and I could be gone. It wouldn’t matter how young I am, or how fit I am, or even how many people love and cherish me. Once my time comes it comes, and while I’d rather it be sixty years from now when I die in my sleep it could honestly be tomorrow, and what do I have to show for my life to this point?

When I got married my wife insisted that we have a lawyer draft our wills. I had never thought about my worldly possessions before. I mean, I owned an old Ford Probe that worked half of the time, a VCR that was completely broken, and a bevy of CDs, books, and video tapes that were probably worth a fourth of what I paid for them when they were new. But my wife explained it well enough for even me to get. It wasn’t about what I owned right now, my physical property. It was about preparing for life after my death, about naming beneficiaries, about life insurance funds, and about making sure my final wishes would be carried out.

In other words, it was really heavy stuff. Concrete even. And as we sat in his office, our lawyer outlined everything for us in black and white, how things would go in the event of my death, untimely or not. When he said the word “untimely” I wondered if a death was ever timely, if it ever really was just someone’s time to go, or if even then it was untimely. I spent the time thinking of those things instead of dwelling on the inevitable, that at some point the only pieces of me left in this world will be memories and experiences, and even those will fade in time.

How do I live a meaningful life where what I do makes a difference in other people’s lives, so that when I die my spirit will live on through positive memories? Continue reading “A Meaningful Death”

September 20, 2014

Friend-vitations

Remember all that talk a few days ago about how I try not to judge others? Well, I thought about it some more, and I realized I most decidedly do judge some people without even knowing I’m doing it. Let me tell you a story…

When I first moved to Newport a little over 12 years ago I was very aware that I was the only black person living in the village, and that was okay with me. I made my decision to be with the woman I love and I wasn’t looking back, but it was hard not to notice that I was the only black person who lived here. Just walking down the street became an experience, and it didn’t hit me until later that I enjoyed the attention.

But, as time went by the area became slightly more diversified, and I found myself one of three black people living in the village, one of whom married a woman across the street. So, instead of being uniquely different I became just another someone who has lived here for 12 years, and I guess I blamed this other guy for that. Of course it wasn’t his fault that I had internalized being the only one as part of my identity, but trying to reason it away was to no avail.

He took to me right away, too. It was almost like he was a drowning man clutching on to a lifeline when we first met. In fact, I had been walking down the street at the time, and he had driven by in his SUV. Suddenly he stopped and waited for me to reach his car, rolled own his window, and this was our first conversation.

“How’s it going, brother?” he asked me in a loud voice.

“I’m okay,” I answered warily.

“You know, we brothers gotta stick together,” he said, undeterred.

“That sounds about right,” I said, taken aback.

“So when are we gonna do something?” he asked.

“We’ll figure it out,” I answered. And I walked away.

I had no plans whatsoever to do anything with this man. In fact, I made up my mind that day that I was going to avoid him at all costs. What? He felt a kinship with me just because we happened to both be black? Or was it that we both have children of mixed race? Whatever it was, I felt like he wouldn’t have been making the overture, or he wouldn’t have been overly familiar, had I been just another guy walking down the street and didn’t look the way I look. And I took offense. I judged him for it. Continue reading “Friend-vitations”

July 25, 2014

No Real Best Friends

As a society we tend to use friends like dinnerware. Some are good for parties, while others fit at sit-down dinners. Some are fancy for holidays while others are paper and plastic. And best friends, where have they gone? In a world where everyone is apparently your BFF, does that mean no one is your … Continue reading No Real Best Friends

June 30, 2014

Friend 2.0

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t always a good friend. There was a time in my life when I was so incredibly selfish that I took advantage of people who I called friends, telling them what I thought they wanted to hear, making them feel special for the moment, and then forgetting all about them when the next one came around. Oh, and did I mention that during this time most of my friends were of the online variety? Or that I was 19 back then?

When I was 19 I was in a state of flux. College was on hold but I was still working at the campus library, I was still able to use my college ID to get into the computer labs, and no one had canceled my email accounts so I was all set to talk to people from all over the country, and indeed all over the world. My friend Anthony had gotten a hold of some pirated internet chat software called Homer. I’ll never forget it because it had a drawing of Homer Simpson on it. He gave me a disk and kept one for himself. And I was in business.

Now, you might not know how things were on the internet back then, still in its early stages, but it was all about messageboards, actual email conversations, and places called chatrooms. A chatroom was a place you could connect to at any time of day or night and others would more than likely be there… chatting. I was fascinated by chatrooms when I first found them. There were just so MANY of them it was daunting at the start, but then I got totally into it. At my apex I was spending up to eight straight hours sitting in a chair at an old-school Mac with the Homer disk in talking to people from all over the place.

I made so many friends it was incredible, and I called them friends, not “friends.” I mean, I spent more time talking to them through IRC (internet relay chat) than my own family, and my two real life friends. It was so easy, being so far apart from them, to embellish things about myself, and before long it was impossible to tell the real me apart from the various versions of me that I created to suit each other person. Then I started emailing them. They wanted to talk apart from chatrooms so I obliged. I began getting and sending a cubic ton of emails.

Then the phone calls started and I really couldn’t keep things straight. Continue reading “Friend 2.0”

June 19, 2014

How to Hug

I don’t even remember my first hug, but it is probably my mom who can claim it. I know I always felt safe and secure with her, and a good hug can be a great catalyst for those feelings. Why do you think that when people are sad a hug can comfort them? Because it’s … Continue reading How to Hug

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