08.26.2002 - 1:46 p.m.

Kelly and I went to a bridal shower this weekend. It was like visiting another country, all those weird traditions. In May I will have to organize Kelly�s own shower, so I paid attention. There has to be an umbrella somewhere, since it is a shower. The number of ribbons she breaks is the number of kids she will have. Her responses to each gift will be things she says on her wedding night. (�Oh, how cute! But it looks so breakable��) And so on, and so forth.

May isn�t that far away anymore.

On our way back to Kelly�s house for the night, we had one of those perfect conversations, the ones that cover all the big questions, love and life and happiness and religion, and leave you feeling like you�ve made real progress, if not on the actual answers, than at least in finding some connection between yourselves and the questions...

Kelly wants to believe in a God because she believes in evil, and needs the other side to balance it.

I want to believe because I want to be part of something greater than myself, especially something that doesn�t translate into logic. Like love.

We are both still looking. She is right there on the edge of being sure, but I think perhaps I will always be searching. The one reason I think maybe there is a god is the fact that he�d have to be too big to find, a suspicion which makes it difficult to finish looking.

God or love. I�d take either, but you can�t skip steps. And right now, I am looking.

I slept on Kelly's floor, curled up with a blanket on the lumpy feather mattress that used to pad the hammock she kept in her dorm room. I felt about twelve, which I think was about how old I was the last time I had a sleepover (as opposed to crashing somewhere). When crashing, you usually sleep on a couch or a bed in a room by yourself; a sleepover is specifically engineered to give you a few last precious hours of a friend�s company.

I miss Kelly�s company.

The next morning, when I left, she walked me to my car where we stood for an awkward moment of wishing-well. Neither of us are the type to initiate a hug, although I think for that moment we both wanted to be.

I wonder which kind of friendship we really have, the kind that ends or the kind that is always there. Jimmy, too; I wonder how much of either of them I will have in the rest of my life.

Sometimes I worry that I am not acquiring friends as fast as I lose them, but mostly I guess I�m just not very good at goodbye.

-stonebridge

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