Hey, whoever may be reading this. It's going to be long and possibly kind of heavy. Or maybe just dumb and sappy. I've very recently came into kind of a bad state. Long story short I lost an old friend and I'm just now coming to grips with it fully (I hope). I've been lucky enough in my 19 years to not lose anyone close to me, so what I'm feeling may be impacted by not being used to loss.

I know this may seem like a really weird place to write about this, but I don't really frequent any other websites with blogs like this and I just want to write these thoughts down. This is mostly for me in the hopes that I'll feel a little better putting this into words.

About three months ago I was sitting in a lab working on a research project I was doing for my freshman year of college. I was by myself in a fairly large room, surrounded by piles of old equipment and notes from the many others who use the lab. I finished performing the experiment and I was just kind of sitting and thinking. It was at this point I got a text from my mom. Every so often she will text me during her lunch break to see how things are going, but this was different. She works at the high school I used to go to so she keeps up with some of the major events. This was a rather unpleasant one.

The text I got was to the point. "Do you or [my roommate from the same town] know Amanda ____? She graduated with you guys. She died in a car accident yesterday."

By the time I got to the last sentence I just kind of sat there. I suppose you could call it minor shock. Probably a pretty normal reaction to hearing that anyone died. I can't fully remember what went on in my head when I read that, but for awhile I just sat and took that in. Eventually I would have to respond to the question of whether I knew her or not. Short answer is yes, and I've known her for quite awhile. Since first grade to be accurate, and I'm pretty sure we were pretty good friends back then. But like many school friendships we eventually drifted apart for one reason or another. For a few years she went to an entirely different school and then reappeared at the highschool I went to. By the start of high school I think we practically forgot about one another as we rarely spoke the past few years. Eventually I realized she was back, but I was (and still am to be honest) an awkward and shy guy. Just never really went and tried to rekindle the friendship. The chance for being friends again all but disappeared junior year when I went on to do dual credit at a community college for a program our school district was doing. Lost touch with a lot of high school friends then.

Back to the message I received, I didn't want to get into a drawn out conversation with my mother about what happened so I replied, "No not really."

Which both then and even more so now seems like a betrayal to the truth. But I didn't want to text more about it, I was still trying to fully comprehend what I just read. A little bit later I would read the news stories about it, see the facebook posts, and I basically accepted what happened. A girl from my high school, who I knew from long ago passed away. And for a long time that was it.

Fast forward to the present and I am now back at home with my family for the summer. Among family and friends Amanda never really came back up in conversation. For better or worse my mind came back to the subject today. I guess this situation needed some more attention before I could fully move on. It started out by going back on facebook and seeing all the people that have their profile and cover photos of them with Amanda. Eventually I stumbled into the profiles of her parents which hit extra hard. At that point I managed to get myself into a fairly deep funk thinking about the past and what could have been. How we used to be friends but, despite once again being in the same school, never spoke. And now we never can again.

At the same time it seems really weird, like why am I suddenly so obsessed about this. This is someone I didn't really know, someone who probably hasn't even thought about me in years. And I probably would not have thought about her much at all in the future had this not happened. And yet here I am, kept up late into the night thinking about it. At some point I thought it would be a good idea to look back at one of my oldest yearbooks. The one I have from 2003, when we were in first grade. If anything I could find some confirmation that we were friends back then and I'm not just fabricating these memories.

Sure enough I found what I was looking for. Aside from the pictures of us in our class there were a few others of us together in this little yearbook. A bunch of happy little first graders. Once making dumb spongebob references together... and now to here. To a time where she is gone and I am prattling on about it all on the first blog that came to mind.

I won't go much deeper with the swirling of emotions that I managed to stir up today. Mostly because I would be terrible at describing it. But today was the day that it all really hit me. I'm stuck awake and can't stop thinking about it.

There was one last thing I found in the yearbook. Of all the things I've looked back on today, this is what hit the hardest. You see, like most yearbooks I had a few signatures from friends and classmates. I had about 10 on the first page of the yearbook and 2 more on a page in the back. Something bothered me though. None of the signatures were from Amanda, and I thought for sure there would be one. Not being able to find one didn't really fit with the whole 'we were great friends back then' thing. Tonight I picked up the yearbook again. I couldn't sleep and decided that I might as well take another trip down memory lane. After looking at the pictures I once again looked through the signatures and couldn't find it. But when I flipped a page back I heard some stuck pages become slightly unstuck. I pulled back the two pages and received a dash of surprise as well as that heavy, sorrowful feeling. There it was, her signature. Easily the biggest of them all. It shared the page with the signature of another good friend that I've known for all these years.

A weird thing happened then. It was like I reached a high and low at the same moment. The high was that I had that final confirmation I needed of my past memories. But then all the feelings of sadness came back in full force. The regret from a lost friendship. The nostalgia of old times. Feeling shitty for not caring about her death sooner. And the most potent, knowing I will never have the chance to see her again. To an outsider it probably seems really silly that I got all worked up about a signature. It's hard to explain but it meant a lot.

This is to you Amanda. It's clear by the many friends you made over the years, myself included, you were a pretty awesome person. I wanted to get it out there that I'm going to miss you too. Even if our last real goodbye was many years ago.