A Memory

I was just trying to fall asleep, but with no success. I figure I'll go in to work an hour late (it helps when you can set your own schedule!) and blog instead. This one will be personal.

Life is so uneven. I know that's a really vague thing to say, but it's true. Most of my days are pretty low-key. Important points are: where to eat lunch, what am I learning in class, who will I hang out with tonight? Personal comfort is pretty much all that is at stake, and I'm sure everyone is about the same. Of the 7,350 or so days that I've been alive, maybe 400 of them have been crucial enough to remember, and that's a very generous estimate. That's not to say they aren't important: big important things (like life) are made up of seemingly insignificant small things, which is a point I've beat to death a lot on this blog.

But, on very rare occasion, things are different. Something happens, and suddenly you've got real issues at stake: your future well-being, the well being of a friend, eternity, survival. There are moments when everything life was made up of seems trivial, the fight-or-flight response kicks in, and weighty issues are all there are.

Right now I'm remembering a Sunday 4 and a half years ago. Halloween actually. I was at the high school group at our church, and a very close friend (who had been struggling with depression and suicide) had vanished, leaving a note saying "goodbye." It was terrifying. His girlfriend fainted, and people crowded around to see what was happening. I and a few other guys immediately started searching the church, and couldn't find him, or anyone who had seen him. My brother and another friend ran into the sanctuary to get someone with a car. Others contacted church officials and told them to start a lookout. In hindsight those were the obvious things to do, but I couldn't think straight. Instead I left the group, and just ran. Blindly, manically. I ran out of the church and into the street, without any real destination, just this intense desperation. I remember thinking I was about to lose a best friend, that the seconds were just ticking down before a gun would go off or a knife would be used, and all I could do was shut my eyes and run. I was crying, gasping/shouting prayers, panting, and hopeless.

I'm not sure how long it took, but Google Maps tells me I ran a little over 2 miles, to Grand Ave, when I found him. He was walking, and I joined him, and waited for an adult to pick us up and take us home.

Now I don't want to twist the story to be anything more than it was. Odds are, nothing would have happened, and all my running did nothing. No heroics here. There was no weapon, no clock to beat, and certainly no immediate threat. But at the time, that life-or-death mentality was more real than I can possibly convey. I can't imagine, at that moment, caring about any of the things I usually occupy myself with. Certainly not my comfort, or the future, or even the absurdity of my plan. The present was everything. I'm not sure I've ever felt that so deeply.

Those sort of moments are extremely uncommon, but they stick with me. There's a reason I still remember that afternoon so vividly, even though, in hindsight, it wasn't any sort of milestone in my life. It was a complete abandonment of pretense and reason, and in its place a completely clear purpose, and a driving motivation to fulfill it. I think there's something very meaningful, even spiritual, in that sort of base desperation. You see yourself, in the rawest, most human, form.

The friend, obviously, is 100% fine, and possibly even reading this. Meanwhile, I've been buffing up on my running skills. So if you want to see how fast I can go, just leave a note.