Outside six or seven people, people don't really know about the last night at Quakecon. Here's part of the story:
Alex, Emma, Aroon and I came back to our hotel room and Aroon and I knock back a couple of Mike's Hard Lemonades. As everyone (along with Pablo and Amit) tries to go to bed to get some sleep before the last day, Aroon just gets more and more hyper. He constantly switches between the beds that belong to me and Alex/Emma making all kinds of noise, laughing hysterically at the small pranks I play on Amit in the dark. Amit promptly accuses both Aroon and me of being drunk from one Mike's. The craziness goes on for half an hour until we all lose patience and decide it's time to go to bed. But Aroon stays standing, silently looking out the window towards the southeast corner of downtown Dallas.
"Dude, what the hell are you doing?" I ask him, exasperated and ready for sleep.
"Dude.. this is my last ten hours in Dallas."
Without saying another word, I knew exactly what was going through his mind. He was taking in the landscape, as much as he could of it without the obstruction of a hotel at least. This place had been his home for as long as he could remember and now he had to leave it. He was trying to let his life flash before his eyes so that he wouldn't forget all the good and bad things he'd experienced. I suspected I'd be feeling the same thing before long.
The next morning we all rushed to get out of there so Alex could move into UNT and Aroon could catch his flight to Pittsburgh. After a two hour struggle to pack everyone up, myself and my two compadres stood outside three separate cars: Aroon's ride to DFW, Alex's van to go home and pack, and my humble car to just go home. There were manly hugs and handshakes and the going of separate ways. Right as I sat in my car, it hit me - it's all over. Sure, there will be reunions and such, but the real togetherness with my amigos is officially over.
I cried. I hadn't cried since I was eleven and my parents' split stressed me so much that I just flat lost it. These guys had taken me in as just some random smartass scrub who was way too into Nintendo and made me into a new person and showed me people and places I never thought I'd see. Now they were over. Gone. It all started during spring break of junior year, when Aroon and Alex came over to my house one day to chill when all three of us were bored. Alex, who I had never met before, turned out to be a pretty cool guy. I spent my whole summer with them (and eventually Thomas and Max as well) and I felt like part of the group. We were The Guys. As school started I felt crappy about returning to Oakridge, but I felt like I had a whole new perspective: yeah, there's still next to no one as cool as these guys at Oakridge, but at least they're out there
somewhere. Meeting a whole new crowd of people who impressed me and challenged me and made me want to become a better person totally changed my life. And as I sat there in my car, watching I-30 traffic through cloudy eyes I found the answer.
"Fuck fame," I thought to myself. "Fuck fortune. Fuck success. Fuck the lifelong search for the answers to life. I'm 18 and I've already found the answer. It's friends. It's not the times you have, it's who you have them with. I wanted to feel guilt for not appreciating them more, but I couldn't have, because every time I was with those groups and at those giant parties I was happy, content, complete. I did everything I could do and I got everything I wanted in return."
And now that's gone. Sure, there are new friends in college, but I hope and pray that something beyond the power of mankind keeps this whole group of incredible together.
So, to:
Alex, Thomas, Max, Eric, Emily, Emily, Emily, Greg, Tina, Rachel, Rachel, Stephanie, Meg, Nick, John, Leslie, Amit, Frank, Pablo, Gus and the whole Hamster-Ball fan crowd (and that includes Harsimar!), Chris, Drew, AJ, Nathalie, Kathy, Stacie, Emma, Cameron, OJ, Mel, Erin, Josh, Wodarski, Syed, Phil, Jordan (even if I just saw you for a little), Sophia, my readers, and anyone I forgot out of pure honest stupidity (which includes Clint and Sarah!):
Thanks. I may not talk to some of you that often, or at all anymore, but I want you all to know that I've dropped all my grudges. A couple of you know that already. If I was mad at you, I've gotten the hell over it, and if I was scared of you then I've grown up. I truly love all of you.
And to the dude who's wondering why the hell I had to have left him out on purpose, Aroon:
I owe you everything, man. If not for a pure simple second of chance of us meeting at Oakridge I wouldn't have that list up there at all. But that list represents my answer to the happiness I was searching for as an obscure little four-year-old in Oakridge kindergarten who couldn't make friends. That list is my life over the last year and a half. And I couldn't be more proud of the result. Every single one of those people up there has had an immeasurable influence on my life and the person I've decided I want to be. And that person is a lot more likable, reliable, loving, independent, and fun to be around than would be possible had I not met any of you.
So tonight I drove down Davis St. - where surprisingly I find a lot of my memories locked up. I took my usual route home. I took the same route I had taken a million times home from Stephanie's house when I was busy between stupid schoolwork and falling in love and being mad at her, and a million times more from Max's house where I took my mind off my heartbreak, and a million more coming home from random friends' houses feeling exhausted and happy. I took in every stoplight, every intersection, every place where I went in town: A gas station here, a Hallmark store there, a pair of hole-in-the-wall pizza places. I came to realize that over the last year and a half I finally felt at home in this town, and faking attending that school, and with this group of friends. That may well have been my last drive home from a friend's house, tired and happy but quiet in my mind from the quiet night outside and the music filling my car.
Thank you. Every last one of you. It hurts me to leave you all, so please don't be a stranger in the future. And above all, keep having fun.
:)
