7:32 p.m. - 2004-08-20
Don't forget about me
I couldn't tell you about the first time I met most of my friends. This is one of the problems with meeting 90% of your friends in a choir of nearly 200 people. Every week you meet someone new, most people you know of before you actually get to know, and you have a blurry recollection of the approximate time you might have met somebody. There are exceptions, of course - people you meet in very specific circumstances (such as a lip being bitten while biting somebody's ass...), or people you meet more formally rather than just running into each other in the hallways during breaks. I could tell you an awful lot about meeting the Raisin, but I met her at my very first choir rehearsal, before I met dozens of other people whose names and faces all blurred together.
Foreman was one of the blurry names and faces. I knew who he was, approximately; my opinion of him was mostly based on the fabulously awful skit he wrote for skit night that year. (His puns are infamous.) He continued to be an aquaintance and not much else, known for being the guy who wrote bad skits and cracked a lot of jokes.
In my third year, I was hunting around for someone who could take over my position on the executive of the choir, and I stumbled upon Foreman. It didn't take much persuasion to convince him to run - he's endlessly easy going and easily talked into things. I'd like to think it was some deep seated belief that he and I were meant to be friends that made me bully him into taking the job, but I'm pretty sure it was nothing more than seeing him walk down the hallway on his way into rehearsal that gave me the idea. Nothing more than a happy accident.
That summer, he broke up with his long term girlfriend and decided to seize some of the adventures he'd missed out on by being settled into such a serious relationship. He grew some ill advised facial hair. We ran into each other irregularly over the course of the summer - on tour, of course, and at the exec retreat where we talked and laughed and joked together over the course of the two days. We played Knights and Ladies together, and bonded over me picking him up repeatedly. (He is not exactly a big guy.) We became friends, brought together by accident, stuck together by like mindedness.
The school year started up, and we found ourselves in the office together almost daily. We lounged about on the ancient couch, talking and laughing and finding more and more in common. I dropped a class and we both found ourselves with no classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, leaving us guilt free about staying out all night after Wednesday night rehearsals. We went to the bar together, and I'd drive him home to Sherwood Park, stopping along the way for hot chocolate and donuts at Tim Hortons and staying out ridiculously late, talking into the wee hours of the morning. He was my advisor on all things love related, his mind working so much like Jamie's but enough like mine that he understood when I stumbled over explanations of my inadequacies in a relationship.
One memorable night we went out to watch the meteor shower at a playground just outside Sherwood Park. It was dark and clear, and we lay on our backs on the slides, chatting and watching the stars fall. Foreman grumbled about the fact that he was missing such a perfect make out opportunity - a meteor shower being an ideal romantic getaway, not exactly perfect for spending with your totally non-sexual friend. I told him he could practice his good lines on me, so that when he did have a girl to take out to the meteor showers, he'd be well prepared.
A few minutes later, we got busted by the cops.
They thought we were up to no good, out in a park late at night when nobody was supposed to be in the playgrounds. We explained about the meteor shower, Foreman going into excruciating detail about the workings of the universe, delighted to have an audience more interested than me in the minutae of astronomy. The police concluded that we were very obviously actually watching the meteor shower, given Foreman's excessive amount of knowledge on the subject, and left us alone with a warning not to get up to any shenanigans. We laughed for a long time at the fact that the cops were probably rolling their eyes about busting a pair of huge nerds who were so obviously not getting it on. It was probably a refreshing change for them, actually.
We spent a lot of time together that year, and by the time tour rolled around again he was one of my closest friends. He kept me sane on the bus when I was in charge of tour, and made me endlessly laugh until my sides ached. We spent the summer in much the same way - laughing, joking, hanging out. There were never any expectations, never any assumptions between us. There have been three people in my life whom I felt I'd known all my life from the moment I met them. One of them, I live with. Another has been my best friend for nearly six years. The other moved away today. He fell in love with a girl who changed his life in so many ways but left him still the same comforting Foreman that I knew so well. He got caught up in her whirlwind, following her to the wilds of Saskatchewan and the depths of Africa. He grew up and found his path and he married this girl that he loved so much, and I was left standing on the sidelines as the path they took together left me behind.
But he will always be my Foreman, the bumbly, geeky guy with a heart of gold who called me two hours before his first date with his wife because he needed pants and didn't know what to buy. I'm the one he wrote to for advice on proposing, the one he took shopping to buy the ring, the one he talks to about everything from Star Trek to deep dark secrets. We'll write, and we'll email, and he'll fly back into my life from time to time and we'll pick up like he never left, like we always do. He'll come to my wedding, and we'll joke and laugh and talk endlessly again. And no matter where we both are, we'll know that we can count on the other whenever things get rough. Or, maybe more importantly, if I'm ever desperately in need of a truly bad joke, I know I can count on him.
So I'll ignore the fact that I drove home from the going away party crying like I haven't cried since the Raisin left. I'll pretend like he just went back to Fort McMurray, and he'll be home every weekend like he was before. I'll force myself to forget the distance between us, and I'll write to him like he's just down the street and I'm just making plans for later that night. I'll nag him about writing in his journal, and bully him into NaNoWriMo again, and we'll egg each other on long distance like we did face to face the first time around. He has always believed in me, never doubted that it's only a matter of time before I'm published and famous, and his unwavering support means more to me than I've ever been able to tell him. On days when I can't even manage to believe in myself, he believes in me, and no amount of distance can change that.
But that doesn't make me miss him any less.
Don't forget about me, Foreman.
