Nearly Halfway to Being a Farewell

It's New Year's Day, 2014 is now at hand, and there are many great things to look forward to! Well, to be honest....I'm having mixed feelings about graduation when it hits in June. I mean, I'm looking forward to it on one hand because I'll be officially done with high school, going off to college, and starting a new chapter in my life. On the other hand, I'm not looking forward to it because I probably won't see almost any of my friends who are in the same grade as me for a long while, especially one of my best friends who I met during freshman year in English and Spanish class and didn't really become close friends with until the last half of my sophomore year when I started hanging out with him and his buds more. This blog entry is going to be about him. His name is Robert. I cannot begin to tell you how much he's been a really great friend to me. He'd always tell me to look at the bright side of things, and stay positive no matter what. He was even there for me when that incident with Anne happened during the beginning of my junior year, the other incidents that happened with the other girls I've mentioned in my blog, and even visited me at the hospital with his mom when I was absent for a week at school last year when I contracted a stomach virus. If there's one friend that I'd have to pick that's been truly a great friend, it's him.

Now, here you might be wondering "He sounds like a really great friend, and I'm glad that he is indeed your true friend, but aren't you going to be able to see him sometime soon after you both graduate?" Well...no....unfortunately. Here's what's going to happen after we both graduate: he'll be off to training and preparing to go on his church mission, afterwards, he'll be entering the Air Force academy and then off to the actual Air Force onto the battlefield itself. The next time I'll be seeing him after graduation won't be until after at least 16 years...longer than I expected him to be gone, but if that's what he wants to go through with, then I'll be happy for him; it's what a true friend would do anyways. When that final day of high school comes, not only I won't be seeing him, but I can't keep in contact with him either because he can't contact anyone when he's on his mission and then then the Air Force; he can't even contact his own mom while he's away for at least those 16 years.

Wait a moment Mark, if he's going to be gone after graduation, shouldn't you be spending more time with him before that time comes? Actually, I haven't been able to really hang out with him as much as I used to last year mainly because he's been really busy since the school year started, and then there was recently that incident that he had to go through with his parents being divorced. When I talked to him about that, he just simply told me that he's going to be gone after graduation day anyways, so it's not really going to matter to him. However, the thing is it did matter to him. He was really depressed about his parents getting a divorce for a long while, very much like how I was depressed for 3 months when I found out that Anne left without saying goodbye. Come to think of it, I really feel sorry for him. I mean, I'm the only one that he's been really open with about his life. The rest of the friends that me and Robert hang out with don't really care all that much about what's going on in his life, and they don't really listen to him about it either; they just go on and on talking about other things. I'm the only one that actually really cares about what's going on in his life, and I'm always the one that's checking up on him to see how he's doing.

I remember one time when we went to a dance over at his church last summer and he drove me home, we actually talked to one another in the car for about half an hour. During our conversation, I had asked him "What makes you always want to be around me?" I had asked that question out of curiosity, and he told me that he honestly doesn't know other than that I'm just one really amazing, special kind of person, and he also told me in his religious context (he's Mormon by the way) that there was a holy ghost that told him to be friends with me because he knew that there was something about me that made me the great guy that I am, and that destiny had brought us to being really great friends.

Honestly, now that I think about it, I'm really going to miss him when this year comes to an end. Not enough words I can say can express how much he's been a really great friend to me. I realize that each day that I'm not hanging out with him, I'm just losing a day more with him before the final day of high school comes. He really wants to hang out with me too, but it's just that he's been way too busy with the classes he's taking along with other things.

On another note, I realize that as my life is starting to change, so is everything and everyone around me. Familiar faces will depart and go, some I will see return later on in the future, and new faces will surface in my life that I will meet and form close relations with.

Now that I'm 18 and almost close to achieving full maturity, I'm determined and motivated to making this life as wonderful and beautiful as I choose to make it. I've learned so much from others (including those on this site) over the course of time, and it's time that I started living up to everything I've been taught and becoming the man that I'm meant to be. No one will be able to take that away from me. Not now. Not ever.