A Pushy Salesman in Times when No One Needs Your Services but Yourself

I'll never forget what I had considered to be my first real friendship. It was with a kid down the street from me, who shall remain nameless but probably knows as much if he is reading this thing. Everything was cool at first, I spent a lot of time at his house as he did mine; we spent the night over each others house it seemed as though things could never changed.

Yet they did unbeknownst to me; I was attending private school and undertaking a different life than he was. Kids are mean, and sensitive, and he often liked to run off at the mouth about how I was different and was changing. In my mind the only real differences were that I wore a uniform and was receiving somewhat of a different education, there weren't a lot of other African-Americans around in the environment I spent the majority of my day in and I actually valued the friendship a lot more than I was letting on.

But to him we were growing apart; he had his friends and I did mine and over time, the only time I saw him was to take a trip to the local grocery store. Now that grocery store still exists, at least it did the last time I was in town; but I don't check for him when I go back and quite honestly, he rarely passes through my mind.

Of course I am the type of guy that can't go through a year without thinking about anyone that played a significant role in my life. I don't let on as much, and I'll talk about it even less, but memories of my past still haunt me from time to time. I was an awkward individual who faced difficulties with a lot of the friendships I had entered into at that time; at times I let little things put a permanent divide between me and my friends and was quick to take hints to suggest that perhaps the friendship had either never truly existed, or simply wasn't what I had either wanted them to be or what I had thought to be.