Drunk and Tired but Writing Anyway

drunk and tired but writing anyway

I've spent the past 45 minutes going through photographs. I had forgotten how many I had taken, over how many years.

Last night and tonight I was hanging out with friends I've known for ten years. Looking through the pictures, I found images of us almost ten years ago. It's funny to see us then, so young. Pictures of ex-girlfriends, friends who have moved away, friends who are no longer friends, relationships which have come and gone, things that used to be, that aren't any longer. Looking at images of myself going through various stages of drunken bloats, images of people I haven't seen in years looking as young as they did the last time I saw them.

I tell myself I'm doing better, but if someone took a picture of me now, how would it fit in with the others?

I like to think I look much better now than I do in those old pictures.

I've been blessed in that as I look through those old pictures, for the most part, I can say I saw those people tonight, or last night, or last week. It is rare, I believe, to keep friends for that long.

I was looking through all those pictures because there were certain pictures in particular that I was looking for. Years ago, my friend Laure decided that she wanted to take a series of photos of me. She took some of the best pictures of me I've ever seen (I didn't look bloated in any of them). I didn't find them, but I was still overwhelmed by memories.

So many people, so many times. The only thing that upsets me is knowing that there are still grudges held among friends. You'd think time would ease that, but I'm the first to realize that isn't always so.

Looking through pictures. Watching the passing of friendships, relationships, moments in our lives.

We're getting older.

I couldn't find the pictures I was looking for, but I remember what they look like. Me, slightly drunk, yet sincere, sitting on that stair-top stage in my red ruffled shirt playing some song at the Last Drop. Aaron and myself drinking at Dirty Frank's years ago, looking so similar that we could have been brothers. Devin, Don, Billy, Sean, and myself standing in an
alley off of Rittenhouse Square trying to look cool and somehow pulling it off.

Young, ignorant, and jubilant. That was how Laure captured my friends and I.

Laure passed away on Wednesday, after a losing battle with cancer. I don't know how old she was, I only know she was too young. Young, ignorant, and jubilant. I'll believe that those pictures capture that mood because that was the mood she gave to them. She always had a tough demeanor but a jubilant soul.

I will find those pictures.

And in the meantime, I will enjoy going through all the pictures of the rest of us, and appreciate our time together that much more.