all of a sudden — nothingness!

Last night, family night. John brought a friend, as he sometimes does. Two friends this time, actually. His friend Cammile, (I think her name was Cammile, when I knew her we called her Cammy) and her son Phoenix. We had a good time… ate family dinner at the park. Phoenix kept everyone entertained. It was obvious that my dad is good with kids… when he wants to be. Phoenix and the spider man action figure he found in the sand rode the slides while sitting on my lap.

Anyway, at some point later in the evening it was just my brother John, Cammile, (Phoenix had fallen asleep), and I, all talking about this and that. For some reason, John brought up this girl I used to know named Gail. I met her at camp, where I also happened to meet a good–lifelong–friend of mine named Derik. John somehow knew that I also knew this Gail girl, and we talked about her for a few minutes before it struck me like a sledgehammer that Cammile was the Cammy who had been at camp with us when we met Gail!!

Not only had she been on the same week-long canoe trip with us, but this was the same girl… things are a bit fuzzy, but I’m almost sure… this was the same girl I had a HUGE crush on, and even tried to kiss on the last night of the trip. If I remember right, she didn’t want to kiss me and I was terribly embarrassed about it all.

So, I was pretty flabbergasted. I said something that probably made me sound like a moron… that she was “the other hottie” on the trip canoe trip. She at least pretended to blush, so that was ok.

The weird part is that I’m not sure if my brother was on a date with this girl, or if he was just hanging out with her. At that point, things were awkward enough, and I decided to take off.

I only remembered the part about the kiss later, and wanted to go back and read my journal from that time. Then I realized I’m not even sure if I kept a journal at that time. (If I get a chance, I’ll be looking through some of my old writing and stuff sometime soon for references to it.)

Today Ryan was talking about his excitement at reading his old email address archive… saying “wow, this is pretty bizarre… going through my old emails, backwards, starting at 7/29 around 2:00.. it’s like i died right at that time and i am going back through my last emails later. all of a sudden — nothingness!”

That phrase struck me. My lack of a journal from that time is somehow similarly cut off. I want to call this girl and ask her what she remembers from the trip. Does she even remember me? What about my trying to kiss her? I had never kissed anyone at that point, and I don’t even know if I made it clear that’s what I was trying to do. She probably didn’t even know I liked her. I remember trying to get in the same canoe with her whenever the opportunity arose.

Life is weird. Bizarre. And things happen all too suddenly. All too sudden. And then — all of a sudden — nothingness!