2002-08-11 - 12:57 a.m.

The viewings, two of them, and then back to J's house after, all my high school guy friends and their wives. The funeral this morning, and the beautiful mass, and J, my poor J, walking down the endless aisle at my childhood church behind the coffin, head bowed, jaw clenched, tears pouring down his face. Man.

And then the lunch afterward. Where I mended some fences and we laughed a lot and talked and made a human blanket for him, for whatever comfort it might be. And then tonight he called me, and he said, come, come see the kids, come right now. And I did, bearing gifts for his little boys, and we sat on his deck and talked for hours and we cried and laughed and raged, alone for a while and with his fabulous wife, as well. And he, whom I've known all my life, is a man.

And I realized that my guilt the other night was not from not making it home, but for letting him slip. If I met him today, we probably wouldn't be friends.

But he is my lifelong friend, the one who knew me before I knew myself, and there is no replacement for that. He has seen everything there is to see in me, knows my joy and my pain and my stupidity, my pulsing fears and my shame. And he loves me anyway. It's strange, rare in my life, to have know another person like I know myself. No matter how different our views or our outlooks, whatever the situation, I know what he thinks and how he feels.

And I realize that I've been both selfish and afraid, and that I'm going to have to reconcile these two lives, right quick. Because although I am more myself here, in this new life, I am myself there, with him, too.

I have a lot to think about, and tonight I feel open and warmed from the inside, and, inexplicably, a little nervous.

Uh oh.

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