An Aura of Emptiness

I'm suddenly struck with the realization that summer is quickly flying by. With my mind being so preoccupied with my medical tests, I've really forgotten to try to enjoy the summer. Sure, the weather hasn't exactly been too great with it raining almost every other day, but I think back to many other years and usually by this time I've already done a lot of fun stuff that has made use of the nice weather that comes with summer.

Every summer my place has been known for two main things--bon fires and movie nights. The group of friends that I usually hang out with during the summer all live in somewhat disparate areas. Smack dab in the center of where everyone lives is my place, which makes it a nice hub to use for get-togethers. This summer, however, I have yet to have one single gathering.

I was trying to figure out why I haven't had one yet, and as much as I want to blame it solely on my medical tests and all that has come with that, I also realize that a big part of it is that most of the people that are usually around in the summer either aren't around or haven't made contact with me to let me know they are around. There's always been a core group of me, Caleb, Chris, Paul, and Sarah. Out of those four people, I've only heard from one--Caleb. Sarah, I recently found out, is spending the summer in Florida. As for Chris and Paul, I'm not sure where they are or what they are up to.

I really only noticed how much I missed having our gatherings around the fire, talking about politics, philosophy, religion, and other topics on Friday when my dad, Kristin, and myself went out to have a fire. It was a lot of fun, as well as very relaxing, to just have us out there around the fire, but it really made me aware that the core group of people I've hung out with during the summers over the last 5 years or so is starting to splinter. Deep down, I think I knew it would eventually happen, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't want it to.

Besides the many bon fires that I'd have out here, I'd also host movie nights, as I mentioned before. This would usually consist of the same group of people getting together and watching a movie instead of burning logs in a fire pit. We watched a lot of really great movies, but at times we'd force ourselves to watch some truly horrendous crap. I've actually been looking forward to hosting some movie nights this summer since I have my new tv--the 56" widescreen HDTV I picked up a few months ago. I'm still in the process of paying it off, but I'm sure as heck enjoying watching movies and playing Xbox on it.

Oh, and a quick tangent, I recently played all the way through James Bond: Agent Under Fire and found it a lot of fun. I liked the fact that it wasn't strictly a first person shooter. The rail shooter levels, as well as the driving levels, kept the game from getting old. In fact, I think the driving levels were some of my favorites of the game. I also have Nightfire to play, but before that I'm going to give Breakdown a try. I heard the story is really good for a video game.

Yeah, so back to what I was talking about before. I guess I was just trying to say that I miss the camaraderie of the past summers. If Kristin wasn't here this summer, and if not for Caleb being around, I would be staring down a really boring rest of the summer (especially with improv not happening this summer).