a good friend of mine from elementary school and middle school, a kid i played soccer with for multiple years, and unfortunately, a person i hadn't seen in quite a while, jordan berg, died saturday of a drug overdose. he was such a cool guy, really smart and really nice. i remember spending the night at his house and playing with legos; one time we made this awesome double decker raft (out of legos).
when i heard he had passed, i couldn't really believe it, and didn't know how to respond. i felt like i needed to tell someone, so i called charlie. as i told him, i could feel my emotions rushing to the forefront. luckily i was able to finish the conversation and hang up, but as soon as i got off, i lost it. i parked outside big bill's pizza, where i was dropping off a couple bombers of homemade porter for hiner and his coworkers to enjoy, and i just cried for about ten minutes. i only saw jordan once since going to college, but immediately i remembered all the reasons why i hung out with him back in the day, and it made me so sad that i never got in contact with him after high school. you don't think about saying goodbye to friends when you're young, because i guess you just assume you'll be seeing them again eventually. i don't know, maybe meet up for a beer or some pool, talk about old times, about how you used to hate playing the palmer divide falcons in soccer, about how their parents used to stay in their cars when it was cold, and honk when a goal was scored. i really wish i could tell him that he was a badass defender, that i used to look forward to hanging out with him and travis grothe on the weekends, play some street hockey, drink hawaiian punch. jordan, i never told travis you tried smoking in middle school.
i'm sorry i miss you now and not a week ago. if i had, maybe we would've hung out saturday night, and you wouldn't have taken that hit. maybe you'd be drinking a homebrew with me instead.
and as i returned home this afternoon, i stepped out of my car and realized that nothing else had changed. there's still crazy ridiculous colorado weather, junk mail in the mailbox, neighbors home from college, an ipa fermenting in the basement, and trash in my car. with one exception, that extra piece of trash, a napkin from the glove compartment, used to dry my eyes after getting off the phone with charlie. i wish you had been alive for this day - it was a good one.
i can't stop crying. this is ridiculous.
rest in peace, jordan. i'll miss you.
current music: ugly casanova - "smoke like ribbons"
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better that; being able to release you emotions, than not being able to. i've had the unpleasant experience of having people's deaths be drawn-out, as perhaps you have too...and by the time it comes, you're relatively used to the idea and you can't get the tears to come no matter how much you want them or how justified they are~
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