The fall of 2006 I had decided to stay at home and attend the local community college. It was entirely my parents plan for me and I hated the idea honestly.
That fall I watched life long friends move away from me. I watched a town of 7,000 people go from feeling like my personal living room to a ghost town.
It hurt.
I was alone.
Slowly after my first semester of college I discovered some other friends who stuck around. We created a community but it was nothing like high school. After that year Travis moved to Columbus. I met and grew close to Dain at the community college. After that second year Travis invited us to join him in Columbus.
There I experience what I had been starving for. For the past two years it finally felt like high school again. Friends around me all the time. Roommates.
After college I moved out to Powell because Dain had moved out there and Travis had headed back home.
Dain got an itch to move to Arizona and took it. But in that moment Brian decided to move to Columbus for school. I couldn't believe I would have the chance to live with one of those life long friends again.
After two years with Brian Travis wanted to join us.
Clintonville.
It was like a dream come true for me. Friends I had spent a life time growing with. Together again.
Last week we got the news that Brian got a job opportunity in Cincinnati.
He wants to take it.
My heart broke.
Ever since 2006 I feel like my friends have always chose
money
career
opportunity
over relationships
over friendship
over community
Here we are living together with more and more friends joining our group. Decades of friendship.
It hurts to see Brian pick opportunity over community.
What do we value in this culture?
People say things like:
You can't pass up an opportunity like that
You'll make new friends
You can still visit
Is that the kind of world we live in?
Where people will move all across the country for a job but wouldn't stick around for a friend?
Where people view friends as replaceable and easily made in any location?
We always dreamed about that neighborhood.
Travis
Brian
Adam
Alan
Jake
Jordon
Dain
Matt
Jared
Downing
each of us with our own house and family the block parties and the memories.
Am I the only one who believed that tale?
Am I the only one who would fight for that?
One by one I've watched my friends pursue other things
The Beach
A controlling wife
A great career
I know it isn't normal for friends to live in a neighborhood together but why not? Is that a good reason for us to quit on it?
This is our life.
We only get one.
How do we want to live it?
What is important to us?
Money?
Weather?
Landscapes?
Our culture is so backwards.
We shove our elders into nursing homes so they don't slow us down
We drop off our children to strangers so we can pursue careers
We leave our friends if the right opportunity arises
I hate this.
I just want to be with my friends.
I want to laugh and make them laugh.
I want to cry with them.
I want to know them.
I want to tell stories about years and years of friendship.
I want to see them at their weddings.
I want to hug them at the hospital when their children are born.
I want to be with them.
I want to do life with them.
Not through facebook
Not through skype
Not on long weekends and holidays
That stuff is a joke, its pathetic.
I want life and I want it to the fullest.
Happiness is only real when shared.
I want to share with the ones I know and they know me. I want to share with those I love. I want our love to grow deeper and deeper. I want to grow fat and bald together. I want to watch our children play sports against each other. I want to babysit our grandchildren together.
I am so sad.
Life is so much more than money, jobs, economies, schedules, budgets,
I want to bring in the harvest with them.
I want to be in the kitchen together, creating, laughing
I want to be at the table breaking bread and sharing beers.
I love my friends so deeply. They are all I have and all I want to have in this life. I want to love them well.
Its hard when they do not have the same priorities as I do. It's hard when we have different world views. But I guess when we said those things I believed them. I want them.
The Avett Brothers - Complainte D'Un Matelot Mourant
That fall I watched life long friends move away from me. I watched a town of 7,000 people go from feeling like my personal living room to a ghost town.
It hurt.
I was alone.
Slowly after my first semester of college I discovered some other friends who stuck around. We created a community but it was nothing like high school. After that year Travis moved to Columbus. I met and grew close to Dain at the community college. After that second year Travis invited us to join him in Columbus.
There I experience what I had been starving for. For the past two years it finally felt like high school again. Friends around me all the time. Roommates.
After college I moved out to Powell because Dain had moved out there and Travis had headed back home.
Dain got an itch to move to Arizona and took it. But in that moment Brian decided to move to Columbus for school. I couldn't believe I would have the chance to live with one of those life long friends again.
After two years with Brian Travis wanted to join us.
Clintonville.
It was like a dream come true for me. Friends I had spent a life time growing with. Together again.
Last week we got the news that Brian got a job opportunity in Cincinnati.
He wants to take it.
My heart broke.
Ever since 2006 I feel like my friends have always chose
money
career
opportunity
over relationships
over friendship
over community
Here we are living together with more and more friends joining our group. Decades of friendship.
It hurts to see Brian pick opportunity over community.
What do we value in this culture?
People say things like:
You can't pass up an opportunity like that
You'll make new friends
You can still visit
Is that the kind of world we live in?
Where people will move all across the country for a job but wouldn't stick around for a friend?
Where people view friends as replaceable and easily made in any location?
We always dreamed about that neighborhood.
Travis
Brian
Adam
Alan
Jake
Jordon
Dain
Matt
Jared
Downing
each of us with our own house and family the block parties and the memories.
Am I the only one who believed that tale?
Am I the only one who would fight for that?
One by one I've watched my friends pursue other things
The Beach
A controlling wife
A great career
I know it isn't normal for friends to live in a neighborhood together but why not? Is that a good reason for us to quit on it?
This is our life.
We only get one.
How do we want to live it?
What is important to us?
Money?
Weather?
Landscapes?
Our culture is so backwards.
We shove our elders into nursing homes so they don't slow us down
We drop off our children to strangers so we can pursue careers
We leave our friends if the right opportunity arises
I hate this.
I just want to be with my friends.
I want to laugh and make them laugh.
I want to cry with them.
I want to know them.
I want to tell stories about years and years of friendship.
I want to see them at their weddings.
I want to hug them at the hospital when their children are born.
I want to be with them.
I want to do life with them.
Not through facebook
Not through skype
Not on long weekends and holidays
That stuff is a joke, its pathetic.
I want life and I want it to the fullest.
Happiness is only real when shared.
I want to share with the ones I know and they know me. I want to share with those I love. I want our love to grow deeper and deeper. I want to grow fat and bald together. I want to watch our children play sports against each other. I want to babysit our grandchildren together.
I am so sad.
Life is so much more than money, jobs, economies, schedules, budgets,
I want to bring in the harvest with them.
I want to be in the kitchen together, creating, laughing
I want to be at the table breaking bread and sharing beers.
I love my friends so deeply. They are all I have and all I want to have in this life. I want to love them well.
Its hard when they do not have the same priorities as I do. It's hard when we have different world views. But I guess when we said those things I believed them. I want them.
The Avett Brothers - Complainte D'Un Matelot Mourant