An Old Friend, Or Not?

My most recent complication comes from my attempt to contact an old friend of mine. He and I first started playing our instruments at the same time, and in that certain way have an inborn connection with each other. I remember so many times playing along with him and it always sounding perfect. We knew when the other would change, and how to compliment, and in effect could go on and on without having to stop. It was some of the best times I have experienced with music. Since then we have fallen apart. We were once in a band together; a simple little pop-punk band. It was good times. Fun songs, and I even helped with the lyrics a little. Then I began playing with some other musicians, and in turn decided to stick with them for the long run, thus ending the project with this dear and long lost friend.

I'm not sorry for the choice, but am deeply wounded by the outcome. I'm sure its all blown over by now, by I really do believe that our falling out was first caused by this event. Since then, he has been in different bands, and I in mine. We have played a hundred shows, both at the same venues, and different ones. I have grown to know what kind of music I am really interested in playing, and he has come to play the type of music he has always sort of been made to play, and they are coincidentally not far apart. He has become, by his own terms, an amazing musician. I think I always knew he would be. What saddens me is that we may never again be the friends we once were, or even good friends when it is all said and done, ever again. Normally I would accept that circumstance, simply knowing that eventually people grow apart, but in my mind he has always been one of my dearest friends. I have, within myself, radically changed throughout the years, and I think for the better. I only wish that we could be good friends again, and perhaps my greatest hope is to one day play along to him again.

I have tried numerous times in the past few weeks to get in contact with him, and to no avail. When I left for this state, we were briefly for a time talking again, though I often wonder if it was simply him being polite and not actually retaining any resemblance of a friendship to me. I hope, too, that that was not the case. Tonight even, I called his parents to find out if he had changed numbers or something, but it is still the same, and I always get his voicemail.

This could perhaps be the one friend in my lifetime I will be truly sorry to have lost.

-C