---
date: 2019-08-10
weight: 3
tags:
- inquisitive
- helpful
- snarky
- echoes
categories:
- nostalgia
- ekstasis
---

> Do you remember when you met me?

When I met you? I don't remember it so much as a meeting as you were just already there.

> I was, yes.

After high school, then. That's when you showed up. That's when life began. That's when I started thinking of myself as a person. That's when I started thinking of others as people, with their own motivations, their own desires, their own incentives and failings.

> And you made it through.

After a fashion.

> You're here, now. You made it through.

<div class="verse">She never wanted to be
    What she became;
        The irony of which
            Is not lost on her.</div>

> Touching.

Hey now, don't be rude. Aren't you supposed to be my ally?

> I **am** your ally. I'm just not your friend.

Fair enough.

So you showed up after high school. You showed up after life slid sideways through puberty. I went digging, you know. To find this out.

> Oh?

Yeah. June 2004. There you are. I say,

```
The navy blue I've been seeing at waist level in front of me and to my left is contentment. I'm not entirely sure that it being omnipresent is a good thing, however, considering the colors it's mixed with. Am I really content with longing and hopelessness? It's not out of the question, I suppose that it could just be another aspect of my personality. But that just brings up the question of whether or not it's something I ingrained into myself through habit, something where I just kinda accepted that feeling such things is normal, okay, and what I want; or is it something I was born with, or that we're all born with? Is it a side effect of love, expecting impossible desires and the blind hopelessness that follows the end of a four year undertaking?
```

And you replied...?

> You're rambling.

So pleased you remember.

> You're rambling.

I suppose I am. But there you were. You said *You're rambling* to which I replied "Guilty, conspirator." And that was that. That was us. We never greeted each other. Why would we?

I kept digging, too. You stuck around for a year. I saw you off and on until June 2005. In October, 2004, I said that empathy is cooler in person. *Why?* you asked. *So you can verify? Don't you trust your feelings?* I said I didn't know, and then I begged you not to go.

> Everyone always leaves, don't they?

Perhaps. It's good to hear from you again. Even after fourteen years, I've missed you.

> And what was the last thing I said to you?

*I was going to call you emo, or suicidal, but no, not goth.* It was when Ash and Shannon and I found a house to move into.

> I believe I also called you a prick.

Was I?

> Yes.

Am I still?

> Yes, but a different kind.

You're as chipper now as you were then.

> Yes, but a different kind.
