The Normalcy

There feels like an unexplained gap in the timing of things. I've been home three weeks and it feels like I haven't walked for a year. And I have no idea how it will feel to start up again.
I've been kept busy, being home. Going back and forth from Canon City to Salida to spend time with friends, working to make some money, and such. The first time I got in my car I felt claustrophobic, and drove thirty five miles an hour all the way up the highway to Salida.
When I'm with my friends I seem not to have changed at all. We laugh and play video games and swim in the river and nothing feels different than when I left.
Last Tuesday I spent the night in Canon, having spent the day with friends, and woke up Wednesday morning at my uncle's house. I drove home, took a shower, and then headed for the bachelor party in Salida that afternoon.
It would have been easy to guess, had I ever given it any thought, that Michael would be the first of us to get married. Senior year (his senior year, when I was taking time off) he went through more girlfriends that I had any hope of keeping track of. He's always been an extrovert, I guess. But the truth is that I never did give it any thought. It's not something that ever crossed my mind, considering which of us would get married first. Marriage seemed like something still a long way down the road. When he emailed me saying that he was engaged it threw me off balance.
Wednesday I stayed in Salida, and all through Thursday, working on wedding arrangements. We rehearsed at four, and then ate, before most of the groom party and ushers drove down in Mike's van to Coaldale to stay at Drew's house for the night. Mike and I stayed around, while he worked on some last minute details. By the time we headed for Coaldale, ourselves, it was pouring rain and eleven oclock at night.
In the morning I woke up early. Showered and drove back into Salida for an eight oclock meeting with a local radio station, then rushed back to Cotopaxi.
A week before, we had learned that a former classmate, Zach Price, had taken his life. Zach had been a good friend of mine for a long time in elementary school, though I hadn't seen him in a couple of years. Friday morning a service was held at the Cotopaxi church, and all seven of us in the wedding who had stayed the night in Coaldale, attended.
It's odd how we remember each other. A lot of different people stood up during the service to tell about how they remembered Zach. For me, the clearest memory is of a play in second grade. We were all different kinds of dinosaurs and we would all jump on the bed and break certain bones, or however it went, and Zach was the paleontologist and he would come out and say 'No more dinosaurs jumping on the bed!' and wave his fingers at us.
After the service we piled back into Mike's van and drove back to Coaldale, for half an hour, to finish getting things together, then drove the rest of the way into Salida. The wedding started at one. I walked Mike's mother, Stephanie, up the aisle behind the grandparents, and sat in the front row while everyone else filtered in wearing Converse sneakers.
Mike, as well as Jasmine, wore white. A fully white tuxedo and white and blue Converses. I wonder how many truly white weddings there are, anymore.
I don't know how I used to think of sex, exactly. I never felt any strong urge toward abstinence, but, instead, simply didn't feel that the timing was ever right. But my thoughts have changed some, now. I think that Michael and Jasmine, choosing to wait, have gained something, and I applaud them.
At the reception I felt awkward. I danced quite a bit. Talked with some old teachers and friends. But still felt strange. I saw one of my friends leaping through a door and I had no idea where it was going to lead. Still don't. How can I, possibly?

In the morning I'm leaving again. Walking up the driveway and turning left. And I'm scared to death. Because now, more than ever before in my life, I feel like I need to be around friends. I've always been an introvert, always easily kept myself happy. But now I'm not so sure. This last three weeks I've been soaked in friendship, and I'm afraid I might pucker up and wither away when the friendship has to get left behind. Hopefully I'll get through the loneliness, and get back into the rhythm of the road without too much trouble. But I'm not so sure.