Thursday, October 10, 2024

23 years of words exchanged, finally a face-to-face

Today's blog post is a story. A long story, that I'll hopefully tell through a far shorter one. 

Back when dial-up was still a thing, AOL was what all the cool kids were doing, and many of us were lucky to get 20 minutes of internet time a day, the internet was a very scary place to most parents. 

Not that the internet is a super safe place free from predators now (it never has been), but there was a greater fear of connecting online with people. The idea of talking with total strangers, let alone befriending them and sharing personal information, was so taboo that I once got grounded for emailing actors in a show (which actually could happen back them), at the official email address of the show, listed on the official website. 

In hindsight, my parents were right in many ways to be worried. Not about that one, though. (I actually reconnected with one of the actors while I was in college and she remembered me. We were even MySpace friends for a while, which was like, the coolest thing ever, amiright?).

Anyways. 

There were dangers, absolutely. There were also a lot of friendships of convenience. Lonely people, connecting with other lonely people, becoming friends largely because there was no-one else. 

But there was still genuine connections and bonds. They may have been more challenging to find, since large communities based on interests, beliefs, hobbies, ideas, etc didn't really exist in the same way they do today. It happened though. 

And despite the couple of stalkers, a cat-fishing pedophile, and a few other incidents (stories for another time), that genuine connection happened for me. 

Back when FictionPress.com was a thing and wannabe writers flocked there to publish pretty much everything they wrote, I too, found myself hitting submit on a near daily basis. At the time, I was steeped in Evangelicalism, so much of my work reflected that. It was, uhm... uh. Well. We're going to avoid diving into that part. The topic itself is only really relevant in the sense that it was the connection line. 

I don't remember who commented first, her or me. Whomever it was, that comment sparked the other to hop over and begin reading their stuff. And then become completely enthralled with their work. 

It was 2002 and I found myself eagerly trying to get internet access whenever and wherever I could to read the comments she left for me and leave comments on her works. Those back and forth 'reviews' we left one another led to private conversations once the site allowed that feature, which led to the exchanging of MSN handles and email addresses. 

In Ris, I found someone who made me feel seen, and who I saw as well. We came from very different parts of the world, and very different lives. But our shared Evangelical experiences, our mental health issues, passion for writing, and interests, pulled us together. 

It launched two decades of a slow-growing friendship. A friendship deeper than any other I've ever experienced... and one where we never had the opportunity to meet in person. Until more recent years, we didn't have much opportunity to "hang out" in voice chats or video calls either. The odd long distance phone call. Skype, even when it was a thing, was a challenge due to less than reliable internet on Ris' end. 

Not to mention the time differences. But there we were -- one from Canada, and one from South Africa. No matter what happened, we couldn't seem to get rid of each other. Even when we had fights where we used our words to wound and cut deep. Where shifting belief sets caused friction and different moral alignments caused offences where there were none. (A chaotic neutral and lawful good walk into a bar... things don't go well). 

Despite it all, each rock that crumbled seemed to be replaced with a stronger one. We reached a point where we spoke most days, almost all day. Just before COVID hit, a new opportunity opened up to us... playing Dungeons and Dragons virtually. Why we hadn't thought of it before, I couldn't tell you. As the pandemic kicked off, the frequency of games we played virtually together increased, and before long, we were having lengthy video calls (sometimes alone, mostly with others) multiple times a week. 

We were thrilled. If you had told either of us 20 years ago that one day we'd be hanging out multiple times a week, able to see each other's faces, talk whenever we wanted, and even have voice calls whenever we wanted, we wouldn't have believed you. 

Then... Ris decided she wanted to come visit. That, in itself, was something I don't think either of us ever, ever expected would happen. She made the decision in 2021 that she would come in 2024, and off we went planning. Neither of us fully expected it would happen. We hoped, but we both kept a healthy does of "it's probably going to fall apart at the last minute", just in case. And it nearly did. Although she applied for her Visa in plenty of time, the process took so long, we were literally days away from having to either push back the flights or cancel altogether. 

Alas. It worked out. 

In July, Ris flew halfway around the world with a plan to spend three months with us. In July, standing in a crowded airport, looking for that towering badass of a woman over the heads of the hundreds of other people bustling about, I saw Ris for the first time, in person. I saw her face, not over a computer screen, but coming towards me. Exhausted, but grinning all the same.

In July, I got to hug the only constant in my life, for the first time. 

Over the past few months, I've been struggling with putting into words what this has all felt like to have her here. Now, she's a week away from going home, and I still struggle. The struggle now, I think, is more due to not wanting her to go and trying to avoid dealing with the feelings. 

One of the most amazing pieces of this trip has been how natural and normal it's felt to integrate Ris into our lives. For her to be part of our family, our daily routines, our chill moments of doing fuck all. 

She has become a constant in such a new, amazing way. And I'm not ready to say goodbye to that yet.

I came across a meme today, that hit a little harder than maybe it would normally. And then I sent it to Ris, the bitch. 

It said: "Hold your best friend close because I miss mine. She's still alive, she just has the audacity of living too far away from me."

It's been 23 years. I think I've earned the right to call her a hag for giving me three months and then leaving me behind 😜



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