Memories

Oh my, April 7th already. Thesis still not done, though it's going to have to be within the next two weeks. Defence on the 18th. Exams on the 14th, 19th, and 22nd. And then I'm FREE. Today was the last day of classes. Last day of classes of my degree. Hard to believe! No, the time hasn't flown, though the last four years have been awesome, but you don't expect the last day of classes to be here. It's always just been something out there in the future somewhere. Just like everything else in the future lol.

Mom and Dad have returned from Florida. Beth's gone dogsitting, though I see her every day. I went up to her "new house" on Friday night and stayed over. We watched the second Elizabeth movie, The Golden Age (good, but we were both a bit lost through most of it), and then watched the season premier of Battlestar Galactica. We LOVE this show. Though we've been quite spoiled with a lack of commercial breaks, since up till now I'd downloaded the whole series through BitTorrent, sans ads.

Alex is coming down for a couple of days this week, he wants to go out to eat with me and Six and Vince. I think it'll be nice to get together, and even to see Six, since he can be so antisocial.

Chatting to a number of new guys online lately. One seems particularly promising, though he goes to school a 5-ish hour drive away (Megan's school). Beth and I might go visit Megan and others later this month, so I might actually get to meet this guy. We'll see.

Sad story. A guy at my school just died the other day. A rare form of cancer. HUGE tragedy, he was loved by everyone he knew, at the top of his class mark-wise, friendly, outgoing, energetic, attractive even. He was also gay. And that's how I made a connection with him. One year ago next week. He had a profile on a site, I added him as a "Favourite" or something, he msged me, we moved to msn, and then chatted. He was super nice, confident, but I was still pretty in the closet at that point, and I wasn't willing to meet up any time soon. Maybe after a few weeks of chatting, I’d thought. To my insular view, he seemed to want to move too fast. It would've been the first time I'd met up with anyone from my school. Anyway, we chatted for a while, but then drifted apart after a few attempts to meet up didn't work out for a variety of reasons. Sometime afterwards he dated Six for a few months, but after they broke up I didn’t really hear much about him over the past year. A few overheard things about how he was doing, health-wise, these past few months. He was a great guy, from what I knew from chatting to him, and what everyone’s been saying about him since he died.

Alex had been the one to call and tell me about his death. Chris and I have talked about it a bit; Chris had fooled around with him way back when. I’ve tried to talk to Six about it, but he can be so non-communicative, I haven’t really gotten him to open up about it. He’d always felt some lingering guilt about breaking up with him, mainly because he’d had this terminal illness. It was the best thing to do, to break up, because the relationship was obviously not meant to be, personalities-wise, but still, Six never really felt good about it.

Everyone that knew him was pretty sad on Friday, and again today. In one of my classes, the prof made this little speech like thing about him, saying where he sat (right where I sit apparently), just saying how much he contributed to the class, through his questions, and his presence, and how terrible it is to lose one of “our family,” which I thought was touching. He asked if we’d take a moment to reflect, and remember him. Then (this prof is kind of old fashioned and only uses an overhead projector; no computer aids) he put a transparency on the projector, and, as silence descended, turned out the lights in the classroom. The transparency had the guy's name typed on it, with the degree he’d just earned after his name, and then the dates, 1985-2008. And that’s it. Just those words in black on a white background in silence. So we sat. The night before I’d gone back to my msn and re-read all the conversations we’d had. We’d talked about some pretty heavy stuff. His coming out to his parents, how it hadn’t been that great. His supportive friends. The few relationships he’d had with guys over the years, the good and the bad. At that point he’d hoped we'd get to hang out over the summer, maybe go scuba diving. He said he’d teach me. He was so sweet. He told me about the cancer. How he didn’t like telling people because he didn’t want them to treat him any differently. He had dreams for the future. Big dreams. He wanted to become a doctor some day. He just had such a great attitude. Something he said stuck with me for some reason:

“You only have one chance in life, and if you do your best to improve the lives of others then your time has meant something.”

And as I sat there in the dark, looking up at that transparency, I thought of what he’d said and I started to cry. It’s weird how you can get to know someone online. I’ve never held his gaze, never heard his voice, never shaken his hand. I’ve only ever read things that he typed to me. And only for a few weeks, at that. I let emotions sweep me away sometimes, I guess.
Then the prof flicked the lights back on and started class. I wasn’t the only one with tears in my eyes, that’s for sure.

Anyway, this was a depressing entry lol. Wanted to write about it.
Later.