I got online tonight and some weird name had added me to her yahoo buddy list. I figured there must've been some reason for this, so I looked on the profile and it said a bunch of stuff about Matt Akers and how much she loves him and blah, blah, blah. A million things went through my mind, and I finally came down to two people who it could be: some psycho stalker who happens to know Matt or else Sarah.

The latter was true. Sarah. Man, a thousand thoughts went through my head about why she would want to talk to me. Sarah. The same girl who used to be my best friend until we got to high school. Sarah. The girl who introduced me to the Bouncing Souls and, in turn, spawned the whole Greg Obsession. Sarah. The girl who I counted out of my life forever. And now she's back.

It's funny how much our friendship mimicked my relationship with Dave. Maybe it was me. I'm the common denominator there. Maybe I was just screwed up in a way that made me incapable of dealing with close relationships of any kind. I just don't know. But I know I'm different now.

So we talked. We talked for over an hour, about Dave and friends and Matt and The Souls and Greg and all the stuff we used to do. We talked about the Robert Smith Chronicles. And I was reminded of the best summer of my life.

I don't know what to say. I used to dream about this, a time in my life when everyone realized how good of a person I really am and decided to come crawling back. I had a million evil things to say to all of them. But it's here and I don't want to say them.

Because on some level, I understand why the dysfunction happened. I know why the breakdowns happened. And it was a lot of my fault. But it was also the fact that everyone was too young to be dealing with the problems I had, and may still have. I was too young to be dealing with it. And when you put two fourteen-year old kids in the equation, a lot of shit gets messed up.

Sometimes you've just got to step back and look at the situation from the outside. You've got to let go of all the emotions and see what really happened. I was a tough person to deal with. And we were all too young to deal with it.

And sometimes, when enough time has passed, it's easy to see that you made a mistake. Sure, I've thought about all the good times we've had and I've wondered if Sarah and I could be friends if we'd just met today.

Sometimes, it's best to just forget the past and realize that mistakes were made and they hurt people and that's that. And we're different now and maybe we could hang out and have some of that back. You never know until you try. And she's trying.

Life is a mysterious journey, but it all makes sense sometimes. Everything falls into place and it all makes sense. All the pain, all the strife, all the bad I took with the good... it's starting to make sense. And I'm looking forward to hanging out with my friend Sarah on Wednesday.

"It's different now, I'm one, I stand alone. I have to be this way." The Something Special by The Souls