i don’t know if i’m a good friend anymore. i had a grasp on this at one point but now its unclear. people that i used to talk to everyday, go out with, take L’s for no longer talk to me and i no longer reach for them. in high school, the assumption was that i would be able to keep the same friends for the rest of my life. some of those friendships didn’t survive the first semester away at college. i wasn’t the friend i thought i was.

i got a friend, antione. i love him like a brother but haven’t seen him in years. we talk on the phone once every other year or so. at one point he was my closest friend. we took him on a family vacation one year to orlando, florida. antione was my edgy older brother that was younger than my actual brother but had more experience. bro was out here fucking before i could even get to first base with a girl. after summer breaks, he would return to school with tales of hand throwing and taking down hood gems.

throughout my freshman year at Howard, we barely talked. i came home and wanted a tattoo. he tattooed “love is my weapon” across my chest. antione is an amazing artist that only those who still look for the “tattoo man” or ask for custom work for their g fazos. while i was being tattooed he told the story of getting shot on his porch. i’m uneasy because i’m getting tattooed right upstairs. what if they wanted to run in his crib right now? i had my second semester ahead of me. that day i felt like our lives were headed in two different directions. i wanted antione to work out of a shop. i wanted him to meet the cool people that i knew so maybe he could do more than tattoo half of the southside. he didn’t want it. a couple days ago, i saw that he has another child on the way. i haven’t seen his oldest son in so long.

my freshman year at howard was a dream. i had a couple of high school friends make the howard move as well. i didn’t expect to meet so many people that i liked there. i met people from all over the country with different slangs and style of dress. howard women are a special breed that can never be duplicated at any other university, hbcu or otherwise. howard is truly a special place for higher education. i met up with my bro, paul, a couple weeks ago. paul was one of my best friends at howard. he’s from jersey and i’m from chicago. i hadn’t seen him in years. its been an even longer time since i saw most of my other howard friends. i haven’t seen them since i left the school after my junior year. its hard for me to link up with my howard friends when they pass through town. i’m usually in a dark room hunched over my laptop. they want to hit the town but the town is expensive and i’ve reached my quota on overpriced liquor. my dream was that i’d turn up in two years and return to howard like i never left. things don’t always go as planned.

my track record with my woman friends may be even worse. i studied economics at howard but i learned the most about the “friend zone”. i would become friends with these intelligent, funny, beautiful women. i thought i found my howard woman but no i found the friend zone instead. i remember i bought trey songz’s Ready album. i thought that was a pretty clear hint but nah. i pressured a few of my women friends to decide if they wanted to date me or out of their lives. i wish i would have just stayed friends with some women. introducing physical intimacy into some friendships just doesn’t work. i’ve lost women friends because our relationship had gone to the point of no return. i’ll get deeper into that in another journal entry.

these days i’m trying to hold on to the friends that i have. i’m nowhere near as supportive as i should be. i’m bad with gifts and i don’t do birthday posts. i don’t tell my friends i love them enough. now that i’m getting older and it seems like i lose someone every month or so i feel a lot more pressure to get it right. we’re still young but not as young as we used to be. i’m still learning that nothing is permanent and nothing is guaranteed in terms of friendship. no one has to be friends with me, but they are anyway and thats love.