The thing about packing...

Is that you pare down your belongings, all the shit you've gathered, and you toss a lot of stuff, be it clothing, or papers, or whatever, and the clothing goes to the Sally Anne, or Developemental Disabilities... And the papers get sent to the recycling bin.

I've had three papers that I've had for almost thirteen years, that I've never thrown out.

They're letters. From a guy named Aiden James Varga, that used to be my best friend in elementary school, and moved up to Shushwap when I was twelve or thirteen.

I forget about them until it's time to move, and then I get lost in a little metal box that I keep very few keepsakes in... The stuff I'll never throw away. I read them all again today, in a early teenage guys scribbled hand writing, with stickers and doodles all over the place, telling me that he missed me, and that I was his best friend, that I should visit him, because he missed me so much, and how lonely he was without me there with him. Thing is, there's not a week that goes by where I don't think about him, and how much I missed him when he left me. And that I still do miss him.

I don't remember everything about Aiden. I feel bad for that. I do know that when I was growing up with him, he was my best friend. He was always on the move, he had a good sense of humour, and he was the first person I watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show with. I totally didn't get it at that age.

I remember going to the park in Coquitlam, and running around like idiots in between the trees, or playing in the playground, I remember going trick or treating, and a brief spree with shoplifting, because kids are stupid. For all that it was a guy and a girl that were hanging out together... I was just his best friend, and despite however many times he moved growing up, or changed schools, or anything else like that, I stuck around.

I begged my dad drive me out to Coquitlam to spend the night there every weekend. I was heartbroken and sobbing when he worried about me sleeping in the same room as a guy my age, and he wanted to stop me from sleeping over, should things "happen". It was all I could do to look at him in confusion, not understanding what he meant. That was when I was innocent. (He took back that decision, by the way. Good daddy.)

I was probably in love with him, but didn't know what it was. I probably have no idea *now* if I was or wasn't. That being said, he was the only guy my age that didn't run away from me because I was the fat girl, or I had glasses, or had cooties, (because I was harassed mercilessly by kids my age in elementary school.) or the myriad of other things that children discriminate against in their peers. To him, I was just Lindsey, and Lindsey was his best friend. That's worth it's weight in platinum. (Fuck gold.)

Admittedly, it was probably my fault that I lost touch with him, I was a horrid corrospondant via regular mail, and didn't write often enough. This trait has passed itself onward into my Email corrospondance. I hated writing letters back then, and I don't much enjoy writing them now. I'd write back if he emailed me, and I'd never let go of that communication with him again, either.

I know I've written about him before, in snippets, and pieces here and there in GSD. I just wanted to do it again. I hope you guys will forgive my repetition.