#only took Jari a near decade to finish the damn album haha

[intoxicatinginsanity]

Lately I’ve been reflecting on the concept of friendships, particularly past friendships. It’s just wild to me how someone who was a stranger to you mere moments before a single interaction can become an influential part of your life so quickly. Yet, they can also go back to being strangers just as fast too.

I’ve been cleaning out my old emails; and today I stumbled on a list of song tracks to a CD, that an old friend of mine in high school (who I also had a big ol’ crush on) had made for me.

It was such a sweet memory to revisit, I haven’t seen or talked to him in years.

But, instantaneously all those feelings that had just been filed off somewhere as unimportant, bubbled right back up. I felt all the joy we used to share listening to our burned CD’s, the ways we talked about games and shows for hours too. How we used to hangout together between classes and sneak coffee from the university center next to our school. We had so many adventures and fun times. It had been music though, that created that connection. He was probably the first and only person, I’d met during that time in my life who loved Symphonic Metal as much as I did. It was an instant bond between us; as he didn’t know too many girls at the time, that liked it either haha. And because of him I gained so many favorite new bands. I mean this guy definitely had a hand in how I developed my taste in music over the years for sure haha.

I still have that first burned CD he made for me actually; and I remember how much I laughed my ass off when I read the title he’d scribbled onto the damn thing in sharpie. “Not Metallica”. It was such a silly inside joke between us and few other friends at the time (and I’m pretty sure it ended up being one we beat to death).

Point is, he may not be in my life now; but the small ways he left an impact are still very much present. His finger prints are still all over beautiful pieces of who adult me grew up to be. What a joy it is to be a small part in someone’s life, however fleeting it might have been. We are all constant reminders of the lives lived around us and through us, it’s wonderful is it not?

I hope he’s doing good, and I hope the teenage boy I knew would be proud to know, that I just made a new playlist titled, “Not Metallica”.