Slipping away

I was settled, somewhat. School was done. I was a working man, working shiftwork underground in the mines. I suppose I was a man by then. A young boy had referred to me as such to his mother soon afterwards, taking me by surprise. I’d never actually been called that before.

But I was still living at home under my parent’s roof. I’d returned from school as usual, no money in pocket, worked my summer, abandoned the prospect of returning to school, gotten a part-time job, was laid off, and had begun to work full-time at Kidd. Life was proceeding; life was in progress. I was drifting through it, but I couldn’t see that then.

I had plans, so maybe I wasn’t drifting, just yet. I was saving up, prepared to get my own place, an apartment first, a house in due course. I was going to buy a car. I would have my own stuff. Or so I had planned.

Cracks were starting to show. My first shift, a miner leaned into me and asked if I’d just started with Kidd. I said I had, rather proud of the accomplishment of becoming an adult. He told me that I was lucky I’d been hired at all. There were rumours of lay-offs, he said. My stomach dropped. That could not be true! Why would they have hired me just then, only to lay me off a couple months later? I brushed his doom-faring off as just that, but the sinking sensation stayed with me.

I postponed the prospect of getting my own place, just so long as the rumours subsided. They didn’t. Six months later, Kidd declared a hiring freeze. Just until the market improved, they said. I began to wonder whether coming home had been such a bright idea.

Life became a waiting game. I worked. I went out on the weekends, always with the intention of meeting someone, being introduced to someone. But I never did, and never was. Most of my friends were still at school or moved on, there were few introductions, and those girls I did meet seemed disinterested, at best. Even with my poor track record, I think I’d have noticed had someone been.
I don’t blame those girls, my self-esteem was not great; I didn’t believe girls were interested in a balding boy in his mid-20s, so I wasn’t particularly aggressive in what courtships I did attempt. When I did venture out, I was soon introduced to their “friend,” (note the presence of the boyfriend) and I found myself belly to the bar, drinking too much, and staggering home. Not what I imagine most girls were looking for in a man.

There were still a few friends living in Timmins. There was Henri, for one. There were others too, but they were largely other people’s friends, friends of those people I’d worked with at the pool. What of my high school friends? I discovered that most of my high school friends were just that, high school friends. I never saw them anymore. I suppose a good many of them had moved away. I’d never actually hung out with them back in school, so it’s not surprising that I’d lost touch with them.

For a time, there were my old pool friends, and their friends. But where once we were all just visiting, I was now the one being visited. Those visits were fun, but they would always come to an end, and were coming to an end forevermore. And I knew it. I just didn’t want to think about it. The “final” winter break was coming to a close, the last before the last ones graduated and were themselves off into their own brave new world of inevitability. Jeff and Fiona and Peter and Fran and Cathy and Sean and I and a host of others had gathered for one last outing before a good many of them were to be on their way back “home,” home being where they hung their hat, just then.

It was New Year’s Eve. Casey’s was packed. Drinks flowed. We danced, we talked, we dreaded the end of the night. At least I did. I could see the writing on the wall. Jeff was leaving, soon never to return. The night came to an end, as all nights do. Jeff and Fiona gave me a ride home. We were parked in my driveway for some time, delaying their inevitable departure. But that moment finally came, and I stepped out into the bitter cold. Jeff told me to wait. He got out of the car with me. He approached me, pulled me into a rough hug and said, “I’m going to miss you, man.”

There. He said it. It was out in the open. I clung to him for a moment, fighting back the tears that were rising, not wanting to appear a child before him.

“Me too,” I managed, patting his back hard.

I turned away and mounted the stairs without looking back. I’m lying. I risked a look back as I unlocked the door. He waved. I waved back. I all but choked. I rushed downstairs, threw off my coat at the base of the stairs and threw myself into the huge plush pillows that spilled across the cushioned storage bench that lined the wall of the rec room. I buried my face within them and wept.

That sounds childish. Maybe it was. But my childhood friends were leaving me. They were finding their way in the world, moving away, and beginning the lives they had prepared themselves for.
Without me.

I felt abandoned, lonely, and desperately alone.