Bittersweet

When you see a formerly close friend after a while and realize that they’re doing better without you. 

It’s not like I wanted him to be doing worse, it was just a bit unsettling how well adjusted and happy and okay he seemed after just five short years apart from his childhood best friend and abuser: me. 

He was my first girlfriend. High-strung, moody, emotional, completely in love with me. 

It appeared that he was the leader of our two-man group, but between us, silently, he followed me. In high school he was Class president and I was VP. Bush and Cheney.

He was hardworking, conscientious, passionate. I did the bare minimum. He knew more than me, but I had something he didn’t. Something that allowed me to score better on tests without studying, and something that put people at ease when he would erupt. I didn’t know what it was. I still don’t. 

We were the same age, but he grew up several years before me. He knew what he wanted. He knew what college he wanted to go to and what he would major in and what job he would get and where he would live and he knew everything and I knew nothing. I couldn’t bring myself to even think about any of that stuff.

Of course, everything he knew about his future turned out to be wrong, but he is better off for having thought of it. I’m not in a particularly terrible situation myself, but I often wish I had started thinking about my 20s in my teens. Like Simon did.