And there we were. Laying in the grass, at 10:30 on a school night.  The fall’s cool breeze, tempting us to wear jackets. But hey, we were teenagers; we liked to rebel against everything we could. At least that’s what we thought we were supposed to do as our quota.

Julie and I had been close as young friends, but when I moved away from the neighborhood, things got harder. We had hardly spoken in years, but when we did talk, it felt as if a part of me was missing. I felt like I had missed out during those years and that we grew apart. I never wanted to give up that friendship, and desperately tried to stop the friendship break-up I knew was inevitable. I got her holiday presents and cards on her birthday, but rarely received anything in return.

When Julie and I were younger she told me a story that I will never forget. When she told it to me, I assumed it was an orginal Julie masterpiece.

There once was a very lonely man walking alone on a beach early in the morning. He had no one to talk to, no one to listen to. He saw thousands of starfish washed up on the beach.  The man looked down only to find that one had gotten in his way and kicked it aside. He was not fazed by the starfish, and thought to just let nature take its place, knowing that the starfish would die without the ocean water. The man glanced up and saw a small boy frantically throwing starfish as far as he could into the salty water. The man laughed at himself and thought how foolish the boy looked. For his own humor, the man went up to the boy and asked him what he was doing. The boy’s eyes lit up as he told the man that he was saving the starfish. The man spoke becoming aggravated and said to give up and that there were too many on the beach. The man turned on his heel, giving the boy a question ponder saying “What does it matter boy?” The man started to walk away, but stopped in his tracks when the boy spoke when 5 words after tossing another starfish.

“It mattered to that one.”

Years later, I found out it was an extremely well known story told in many different versions, originally told by prophesies during the times of Christ. Oops.

Continuing with the story that became somewhat of a theme of our friendship, I re-wrote out the story and put some candy in a bag next to it for a Christmas present. I made my dad drive me almost an hour to her house just to ring her doorbell, drop the bag and run back to the car. This had to have been the most significant present I had ever really given to someone. When I never received a thank-you or present in return, I knew it was really over. She had moved on with the childhood I never had a chance to finish with her.

But somehow, we connected enough to sit in the grass together, after I was invited to her surprise birthday party by her older brother (who has gotten to be a major hottie). It was somewhat awkward, because I didn’t know a single person there besides Julie. So I waited until everyone left to actually talk to her. It was nice to catch up, yet sad that I would never get those glory years back that I had with her, knowing things would never be the same. I was dumbfounded at how much time could change old friends. After some silence while looking at the stars, she turned to me and asked me what I loved. Immediately, I started listing off the usual friends, family, pets, ect. But then she looked me in the eye and asked me, what the reason was that I kept going. She had been told through the grapevine about my year, about my episode with depression. I was taken aback at the question, because I really had never been asked that, especially not from someone I have not talked to in years. I thought a moment of how to explain my answer. My answer had two intertwining parts, contemplating a way to speak my mind verbally without sounding like a total nub.

“Volleyball.” There, that’s good enough right? Wrong.

“Huh?” Damn it.

“I guess you could say it’s hard to explain.” I let my statement linger in the air as I thought about my explanation.

“That is the cheesiest thing I have ever heard. Hurry up and explain, I haven’t got all day.” Rude. Here goes nothing…