I was watching an episode of The Simpsons, which revolved around Lisa’s new, and possibly escapist friend, Juliet. They became great friends, to the point where they were deemed obsessed. As I watched the show, I began to feel nostalgia strong enough to make me weep for my not-so-distant past. I cried with tears of love for my now distant friend, Tyler. Whenever I was with him, I had a tunnel vision that focused only on our conversation. We had classes together, and I became quickly distracted by him (despite the fact that he was rather quite around others except me.) and his amazing art. However, I know the age-old story of too much freedom (“There’s nothing more binding than too much freedom.”-Benjamin Franklin), so I decided we needed to be seated away from each other.
He understood, but our growing friendship never stopped. It got to a point where I, for a not-so-brief moment, thought that I loved him. I realize now that it wasn’t him personally that I loved, though I would still do anything for him, but it was the fact that, as a person, he completed me.
Though I still speak with him, I never mention how I felt about him. I could use the cliché that he was the ‘brother I never had’, but that would be a lie. He was even more than a brother to me, he was, in fact, more like an extension of myself and I was an extension of him. Many people have come and gone in my life, but in all honesty, he was the most significant person I ever had the privilege of meeting and knowing.