His name is Leisha. I know I KNOW! It's just. This is the kid that used to have a really big head and would dress up to play soccer! The kid that I used to make up stupid bicycle games with and who would walk me home. Who I would sometimes make fun of because I was a whole year older and thus much much wiser. It's really inappropriate to keep calling him "Suslik" which basically means gopher. Now he's twenty and we're toasting his health and happiness and goodness gracious I forgot that it's customary to drink after every toast. Wow. Thankfully the table was well set. Vodka, Champagne, Wine, and then moving away from alcohol, there was every kind of cold salad imaginable, little sandwiches with caviar, fresh vegetables, and that was just the first course. Well the alcohol was for every course. Then for the second course there was this amazing chicken and then cake... his mother is amazing. Not only did she set this amazing table TWICE, having done so the day before in Moscow, but also she sat around and drank with us, telling us tales of whats important in life.
You know how grownups lecture you on that you are like "I KNOW, I KNOW, god shut up!" but you don't say that because you have to respect your elders? Well it wasn't like that. Natasha was so just such a nice, happy woman
and she told such heartwarming tales and she prized friendship over all. How loyal friends were the best thing anyone could have and things like that and told stories about how when Leisha was born everyone arrived to the hospital to wish her well... I don't know it just sort of struck a chord in me. I guess it's because my family moves around a lot, and it just works out that most of the support and love I receive comes from my friends, but well, she sort of reaffirmed the fact that friends are very important. I mean well duh, of course they are, but I often get shit from my family because they think I'm overly loyal to my friends and they keep repeating "Friends aren't forever". Yeah well, I mean they kinda are.
Here are these kids who I don't see in forever, who I see maybe several times a summer every few years and they still accept me back with open arms. They've all grown up, and I know that there is no way I'll ever get back those golden days of childhood that were spent adventuring out around Karmanovo, but they are still around. They still remember. God our summers were fucking golden. Our parents would all send us here to live with our grandparents and we would have such adventures. Tom and Huck style. It makes me sad to think of this as in the past. To think of these kids as grown ups. It fucking sucks. At the birthday I teared up at one point, after learning my friends were getting married, and I thought it was the alcohol but it wasn't. I have to end this post before I end up bawling my eyes out which will result in my mother coming in and mocking me.
And though the shadow of a sigh
May tremble through the story,
For "Happy summer days" gone by,
And vanish'd summer glory-
It shall not tough with breath of bale
The pleasance of our fairy-tale.
For "Happy summer days" gone by,
And vanish'd summer glory-
It shall not tough with breath of bale
The pleasance of our fairy-tale.
Lewis Carroll