Leaving Importance

a short anecdote I wrote that felt good to reminisce at the time

Recently, I was faced with a question: has pride ever gotten in the way or caused you to lose something important? Within moments, my mind flashed to a VERY specific memory where this situational question resolved itself in the answer. The following is an attempt to answer that question. Some places and names have been changed for fictional & non-fictional purposes.

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When I was about 18 or 19, the summer of an age of my life was upon me. The high school world I devoted much of my time, energy and development was slowly fading into the record books. The college world to which I had never experienced but heard various stories about was soon to be underway. Nevertheless, that summer transition time was, just about, the only thing that seemed to matter. No, it didn't 'seem'. It was the only thing that did. The days at the University of the Incarnate Word were about to unfold.

They also marked the days in which I was beginning to lose those people I could once call "friends" to become a more free-spirited soul, entrusted with making good decisions while keeping in mind the future I was hoping to prepare for while preparing for it. It's not that I was going to fall out-of-contact with everyone...just the few folks I could mingle and confide with when the right situation and time came for it.

Of course, that was the time when a lot of my friends, from both the neighborhood and school, were doing the same things as I: getting ready for the "future", the next chapter and phase(s) in our lives, as if any of us really knew what the hell the future would actually hold for us and how to handle situations we'd yet to encounter.

Anyway, it was a completely random day of that usual central Texas summer afternoon. Trademarked by sunny, clear skies and slightly overcast clouds filling God's heavens, the days were a never ending mix, a cycle, of hot and mildly hot. No one could tell the difference. Then again, no one needed to. Welcome to summers in Texas, people. 

I was in my Dodge Intrepid Classic, "Jade" as I'd admiringly named her (for most pals and people quipped about not having named your car in those days), that day, coming home from being somewhere out-and-about. For the life of me, I could not remember where or what or with who. I just remember a sunny day's drive home.

It was some time in the middle of the afternoon. 

I turned left onto Backhill Road, coming up from Converse Hill Road. They were both nice, clean neighborhood through roads, linked various mini-sections of the area neighborhood together the way a well-developed road system is intended to do. (Thank you, Romans.) 

Before not 100 yards passed by, I passed Autumn Estates, the nursing home in Meadow Place. It wasn't the nursing home, though, that startled me. 

It was the person whom I saw. It was Rachel, my friend from a few years back. My friend with whom there was a special connection, albeit an unspoken one. She was standing in the parking lot, talking to some guy, Frankie Maxwell or someone I did not immediately recognize. Maybe I did. It didn't matter. 

In the next moment, that's when it happened. She glanced in my direction and, by chance of instinct, recognized me in the driver's seat, even for a brief second or two. At least, that's how it felt when a driver is going around the 35 mph speed limit and a glance in the right, or wrong, direction from the road results in a complete blur of everything else existing in the world. 

Nerves twitched. Blood sped up. Mind reckoned a choice in a split moment of time, as if making it depended on so much more than the actual choice itself. 

Within fifty yards, instead of turning around somewhere, in spite of the fact that no other car's were causing delay in my driving ability or abilities to make decisions, to head back and say "hello" as a friend should do, a choice was made to keep the car going as it was.

No more than a minute later, I received a text from Vanessa.

I know. I shouldn't have been looking at a text, especially so early in my driving career, even with the continued alerts, warnings and various people saying "don't text and drive." 

"Why'd you keep going?" "Why didn't you stop?" 

My fingers went for the buttons my mind was programming them to: "You wanted me to?"

"Yeah ;)."

I'd driven no more than about a quarter-mile down the road when I read that. Whether by instinct or by choice, hell, maybe by both, the car continued on the road and in the direction it was heading. 

A reason drove the car down that patch of asphalt. Yes, I knew I probably wouldn't see her again that much in the near future. After all, I was moving to a different city and would be doing "my own thing" with a whole new set of priorities.

Fact really was, I hadn't really spoken to Rachel in the recent past few years much, if at all. I had no idea about her daily concerns and daily life. The Rachel I knew was the one before the teenage years took their toll on all of us. I had no idea about the Rachel standing there, why she was there or anything about her future plans and such.

I felt removed from a friendship that was only starting to blossom. One that could have been more, but wasn't.

And it would remain, and only remain, as just that, quite possibly, for an awful long time to come. 

Instincts made a decision for me that day. It wasn't a physical reaction. Nor was it fear. A growing sense of maturity, I suppose, possibly arrogance and a focus on all the future endeavors awaiting me, made the car continue. As the car continued on its way, it would always be something starting to blossom.

To this day, the part of my teenage and childhood-born innocence wishes to return to that drive. To go back and say 'hello'. However, to this day, that wishful intention remains in that part of my existence, as a good memory of the girl who was versus the one that lives now. Each time this person happens to be in that area, brief memories resurface, if ever so briefly and humbly. 

I'm Mason, and this is my story. 

Author's Note

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