Bros for Life

Think back to the days when the highest level of stress was trying to get through level 8-3 on Super Mario Brothers with your fire power intact so you could easily blast past bowser. Or sneaking out of your house to hang with the boys, hoping your parents or friends parents would hear you and your fat buddy try to roll out of your bedroom window. Hoping the cops wouldn't catch you and your friends as you all got trashed, running around drunk and stupid at the nearby elementary schools kick as playground at all hours of the night. If I only knew what stress meant back then or rather what it would mean to me now.

Gone are the days on nintendo marathons, under aged drinking and desperately trying to get a little touch and tickle with a girl who had no interest in me. Gone are the nights of drunken "philosophies of life" socials with my best friends on some dark unamed road in the bed of my buddies toyota. Simply put, gone is adolescents and capricious youth.

Now our adult days seem filled with mortgages, bills, daycare expenses, rising gas prices and trying to figure out what the hell the millage rate has to do with our property taxes. Instead of comparing sega scores we find ourselves comparing electric bills. Back road boozefests with your buddies, tends to now be downing a few beers in your recliner to help you sleep. Tinkering with the stereos in our first cars is now filled with dread of another car payment we may or may not be able to make. We used to stay up for 24 hours straight just to prove we could do it, now it happens because we sometimes can't avoid it. Now I would mow my parents lawn everyday, with a pair of scissors to avoid the stresses of my everyday job, back then I considered that work.

No time to be childish with children of our own. No time to be even slightly irresponsible with so many responsibilities weighing us down. No time to yourself with so many seeking time with you. Bullshit.

An old friend contacted me the other day. Friend is an understatement. Actually he is the guy I did all the above stuff with growing up. As many of us have, we lost touch somehow, somewhere down the line we just felt we needed each other less than we did back then. I suppose we grow into our Independence. I suppose we both just felt that we were both doing fine where ever we were in life and that's that. Bullshit. I've realized that I shouldn't ever loose touch with those who were and are important factors in my life. My buddy is having a tough go at it at the moment and I feel for him. Over the years I really only heard how good he was doing and didn't figure we had much in common anymore. My family is great, wife and kids and such, but my professional life has never been what I felt his was. Perhaps a bit envious. I now see that we are still the same inseparable goofballs we always were, just 900 miles apart. He'll get through this patch and come out fine. We just need to get back to our roots. We have to remember what made us the men we were before the we got to the point that we almost let life bring us down.

Fact of the matter brother, were still healthy and alive. Its up to us at this moment in time to live our lives how we want. We have to do what we got to do and keep on keeping on. We're to old to be continually dumped on by others. We're to smart to be continually taken advantage of. But were too young to give up and give in. Your still my brother from another mother and I can't help but feel your pain. I'm sorry I didn't do my part to enjoy with you the success you've had. I missed the buddy boat on that and I apologize. So in closing to anyone reading this, don't take life for granted. Don't pretend to know how somebody is doing without talking to them and most importantly don't loose touch. Don't loose touch with those important to you, don't loose touch with memories and don't loose touch of what is really important in life.