I have a habit of saving memorable AIM discussions, be it for sake of wanting to remember them later, or for blackmail. In this case, both apply. The earliest conversation I have of Suddar's dates back to 10/15/00: I was 15, he was 14. A display of our once-staggering intellect:
quote:
KeeFreak: Sure, I feel like shit every day, but I manage to trudge through it. And that's my normal day. And that's the way it's ganna be until I decide it's not for me.
LeoC007: *shakes his head* That's depressing.
KeeFreak: -I'm- depressing. *shrugs*
LeoC007: You're...different.
KeeFreak: Because I'm me. Not that guy over there.
LeoC007: You're depressing...yet you're also oddly inspiring.
LeoC007: Yeah.
LeoC007: But how can you be sure?
KeeFreak: What do you mean?
KeeFreak: Oh, and thanks for the compliment. Heh.
LeoC007: I mean..hell, I'm not sure what I mean. What I think I mean is...how can you be sure you're not that guy over there? How can anyone be sure they're what they really are, as opposed to just someone who does what he thinks is actually his own bidding...fuck, I don't even know what I'm talking about. Sorry, it's an incoherent night.
LeoC007: And sure.
KeeFreak: How can I be sure? I can't. I can assume. I can lie to myself, I can tune him out. But I can't be sure. Maybe we both go to bed questioning the world. Maybe we're both exactly the same, but I sure as hell hope not.
LeoC007: ...that's possibly one of the best answers I've ever heard. Thank you.
KeeFreak: You ask these questions a lot? Heh.
LeoC007: Nah...just the spirit of the thing.
KeeFreak: Ah.
KeeFreak: Well, thanks again.
LeoC007: And thank you.
LeoC007: And now...I walk the dog.
KeeFreak: Now?
LeoC007: Maybe that's what I'm here on Earth today to do...walk the dog.
Christ alive, reading that again is horribly embarassing. Looking at that now, it occurs to me that I, as well as possibly every teenager ever, was astonishingly melodramatic, and utterly full of shit, and would probably have grown up to become a poet or the singer in a cover band based on The Cure or something, without someone to give me a smack upside the head now and then.
I didn't have a lot of emotional support back in those days, which was the source of most of my fairly omnipresent teen angst. But regardless of the fact that he was going through much of the same, and generally much worse, Ryan was always there for me when I needed a hand, and even with the same ratio of trouble going on nowadays, half a decade later, he still is.
On the other side of things, I've gotten to watch HIM grow up, and turn into easily the greatest guy I know, and likely ever will. The fact that I had a role in it will always be one of the bigger honors of my life, but all in all, I don't think I can take any credit for it: he went from out-angsting me regularly (old ECers can back me up, here) to quite literally kicking himself into shape and becoming an amazing individual, by sheer force of will. And that's the kind of thing we don't have nearly enough of, these days, so it damn well deserves notice. So, questionable sexuality aside, while this post doesn't feel nearly adequate, it'll have to do:
Happy birthday, Ryan. You were a great kid, and you're going to make a great man, but enjoy being a teenager for one more year: you deserve it.
It's not something people hear about.
But in other news happy birthday Suddar. I'd post that glomping emoticon but it's too big. Snugglits fucked around with this message on 10-25-2005 at 09:19 AM.
Oh well. Happy birthday, big man. 
