Musings- Estrangements

How it took a death, to bring best mates back together again!

As I’ve stated before, isn’t life strange? Filled with so many highs and O so many lows? And hopefully this blog highlights some of the highs which can be experienced from life!

So, around 5 years ago I cut all ties with my oldest friends, dudes who I had known since I was in high school, guys who I would of described as my best mates, guys who were my best man and groomsman(s) when my wife and I got married coming on 12 years ago. And the active effort on my part to reject all attempts of contact was over the silliest of reasons (due to a prank call no less). Perhaps it came at a very bad time in my life, at a very inopportune moment, and the outcome triggered what I hated the most about being blind…… So, basically one of my mates called me as I was leaving work, as I was about to turn into the Devonshire underground tunnel at Central. So, as I picked up his call I was distracted that instead of making a perfect 90 degree turn into the stream of people moving into the tunnel, I end up drifting into a ladies clothing store, entangling myself in clothes and clothes hangers, making an utter fool of myself. Meanwhile my mate was on the phone, pretending to be Australia Post, and saying that he had an undelivered package for my wife from a sex shop. So, I hung up on him. Shamefaced, I picked my way back out of the clothing store, super annoyed that I had drawn unwanted attention to myself  and proceeded on my way home. Meanwhile, I kept feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket, I knew it must have been my mate trying to call me back, but I was annoyed at him, and it’s the Devonshire underground tunnel at peak hour, with people everywhere, no way could I stop to pick up his phone call. And as I don’t like checking my phone while in public (it talks out loud, so everyone in ear shot could hear), I only checked my phone on return to home and I had like 3 missed calls from him, and one other missed call from another friend (my best mate). And at the time, I did wonder what was so urgent that they were both trying so hard to get in contact with me. But I was still annoyed at the initial friend, so I didn’t call them back, and if they did try again, I didn’t pick up. BTW, by this time I was off Facebook, so by phone was probably the only means they could get in touch with me (they don’t email much).

Months later, I found out that one of my other mates (there were 4 of us), he and his wife had their first child, the first of our group to have children and I kind of worked out that probably the guys were trying to get in contact with me in regard to that. And knowing this, it made me feel quite embarrassed, that I had missed this significant milestone of our group’s  due to me avoiding them, and instead of reaching out to make amends, I felt too embarrassed to walk my actions (or lack of action) back, so I did the easiest thing, the gutless thing and I did nothing and just kept avoiding them.

In total I avoided them over the duration of 5 birthdays, as my best mate would write on my Facebook wall each year wishing me a happy birthday  (which my wife could see on my inactive Facebook wall…..do they still call it that?). While I made no attempt to reach out to them, when I learnt that my best mate also had his own first child with his wife (my wife saw it on their Facebook account). But it took a death to bring us back together.

So, as some of you may know, my dad sadly passed away in December, and as my wife posted on her Facebook, informing our mutual friends of his passing, my best mate messaged her privately, paying tribute to my dad and also saying that he was there if I ever wanted to reach-out to chat. And as I was setting new year resolutions trying to pick-up the pieces of our lives after dad’s passing, trying to re-build our new reality in a positive way, I vowed that one of the 3 things which I wanted to improve on in this new stage of life was to re-connect with some old friends. And my first move was to reach-out to my best mate.

We worked through my wife, as an intermediary, until we got each other’s new phone numbers and it turned out that my mate had re-located to Brisbane, which made it easier and harder at the same time. Easier, as I think catching up in person after all these years might have been a harder initial step to make, but harder as well, as if our re-union did go well, catching-up in person would be more difficult.

But like nervous school boys, we had our first phone call in half a decade, 8pm for him (after his child had been put to bed), and 9pm for me (a pretty late hour for an early riser like me). And it was a little strange at first, he sounded a little different, as perhaps he didn’t want to speak too loudly in case he woke his child (perhaps that was his dad voice as well). And I probably sounded different to him as well, as I was a little nervous and in recent times I have tried to act more mature (to align my age to my behaviour). So, to him,  I probably didn’t sound like the guy who he knew from his childhood. But over an hour, we were able to work out what had caused the falling out, that infamous phone call, and we were able to catch up on what had transpired over the past 5 years. For him, the additions to his family, moving states, new jobs etc. While for me, well, not a lot had changed in the prevailing 5 years, except for the passing of my dad. But we rang off, feeling good that we had re-kindled our decades old friendship, and we vowed to keep in touch.

Fast-forward a month, my mate was coming back to Sydney for a couple of days, to wrap up a few things, and he asked if I would be up for catching up. At the time I was taken a back, as I had prior plans for those 2 days, but after sleeping on it, I too wanted to see him, and I texted him to say that I was free both nights that he was in town. But then he got back to me, saying that after looking at his schedule more closely, perhaps he couldn’t make it work, but we could chat on the phone that evening. So, we did, but after chatting and after he found out that I had cleared my entire Friday (took the day off work), so I could be flexible around his movements, we decided to make a face-to-face catch-up a reality!

So, yesterday suitcase in tow, bright and early we caught up. And we had both changed, I’ve changed my hair style quite drastically since he saw me last (probably makes me look older), and he had warned me that he had put on some weight, and I could feel it in his arm as he sighted guided me. And over 90 minutes we reminisced about old times, we went for a walk and ended up at Market City, where he used to work in retail, and he was shocked to see how much his old stomping grounds had changed. And like old friends that we were, we quickly reverted back to old times, recounting memories of our childhood, updating each other on what other mutual friends were up to these days, and re-counting encounters with guys from school who we had bumped into recently and how much they had all changed (from idiots at school to respectable men with families). But what underpinned it all, was the joy of re-connecting with an old buddy, and how coming together could bring back such good (and some not so good) memories of our childhood, when life was so much simpler and easier. And we even learned some new things about each other, things which you wouldn’t ask or bring up as kids, as which 13 year old ever had deep and meaningful conversations. But now as adults, we were mature enough to ask those questions and have a mature conversation about it, and even though we’ve known each other for almost 30 years, it was interesting to have some of our backgrounds filled in, which both explained the past and explained why we turned out the way we were today.

So, why am I telling you this story dear reader? I think I just want you to learn from my lessons learnt, so you can avoid the mistakes I’ve made. As there are many estranged relationships out there, like between childhood mates; between blood brothers; between fathers and sons; between mothers and daughters etc. And estrangement is always the saddest, as it suggests that once not long ago, you were super close, like brothers, or perhaps even blood brothers, but due to one thing or another, you guys have drifted apart, oftentimes over the silliest of reasons (take me as an example). But I would like to say now, bury the hatchet. It’s really not worth holding grudges or living life trying to avoid an entire part of your past. Be the person who makes the first move to reach out to make peace, and I guarantee you, once you’ve made the first step, you’ll feel remarkably better for it! And you never know, it may lead to re-establishing a good friendship, or re-uniting an entire family.

But to the question of whether I was ready to re-connect with my other mate, the one who pranked called me? I had to shrug and inform my best mate that I’m taking baby steps for now. But who knows hey? Life is strange and is a winding road, so who knows how this story will ultimately unfold. But for now, I’m just glad to have my best mate back, and let’s see how we maintain our long-distance friendship.