Living up in the Puget Sound during the summer brings back odd memories, completely at random. Maybe it has something to do with how green and alive the area is, I’m not sure. Catch me driving down I-5 on a warm summer evening with my windows down and I’m sure to be completely detached from reality, lost in memories that seem like a whole different lifetime.
The strongest of those memories would have to be the ones from the summer of 2000. I was eighteen and my father had just given me my first car. I had money in my pocket from the job my mother got me earlier in the year and I was itching to escape the prison I had pictured my home town to be.
A year or so prior I had joined The Knights of Glory and Beer, an Ultima Online guild I had idolized in the early years of Ultima Online. At that time in my life I couldn’t think of anything cooler then being known and important in the guild. Something like Marcus Tiberius, Nathan Rahl, or Jetstar.
At the time KGB called the Ultima Online server Siege Perilous home, and like any true fanboi I spent every available moment in the KGB irc channel and logged into Siege Perilous. If there ever was a classic case of MMO addiction it was me. I honestly had a hard time telling real life from the guild, and my priorities reflected such. So when word came round that the community members of Siege Perilous (and by proxy BattleVortex) were planning a real life gathering in San Fransisco and Jetstar was attending.. Well lets just say my priorities quickly shifted away from work to the long trip down I-5.
I can still remember how the temperature of the air seemed to change and increase the moment I cruised down the highway across the Oregon/California border. I still swear to this day that there is a magical temperature barrier you cross the moment you enter California.
I must have driven for eleven hours straight at least. The trip as beautiful and awesome as it was really was nothing more then a hindrance to me. Jetstar was waiting for me on his yacht(or at least it seemed like a yacht to me) in Alameda. I couldn’t put to words how excited I was. This guy was larger then life for me, he was my guildmaster, my friend, and a bit of a father figure. He was rich, smart, and just all around awesome. I think its fair to say I thought the man was invincible.
Nothing seemed to be able to get me down, not the locksmith I had to call because I locked myself out of my car near Mt Shasta, not the one Limp Bizkit cd I brought playing over and over, and not even how I got lost in Oakland at one in the morning when I finally made it to the Bay Area.
Once I got myself back across the bridge and out of Oakland I called Jetstar from a pay phone and we agreed to meet at a grocery store I recalled passing a few miles earlier. Once I hung up the phone all the pent up excitement and tension hit me like a ton of bricks. My stomach knotted up and I had a whole family of butterflies going to town in my gut. I remember hesitating, and even considering getting in my car and driving back home. What if I didn’t measure up to Jetstar’s expectations? I was supposed to be a trusted leader in an organization he had nurtered for *years*! Who was I kidding? I wasen’t some battle hardened General, hell I wasen’t even brave enough to stand up to my Mother.
Fortunately for me I was closer to Jetstar’s boat then I realized, and in the time it took me to panic over all the different possibile judgements he would lay upon me he had pulled his VW Bug up to the store. To my amazement, no judgement came. He didn’t laugh at me, he didn’t turn his car around and drive away. He smiled at me and told me to follow him in my car. The slip was close, and I parked my car a few spots down from his. The funny thing is, as I got out of my car and started to walk toward his I can’t remember any butterflies, knots, or any other symptoms of panic of nervousness. I had realized in those few moments that Jetstar himself wasen’t the seven foot tall barrel chested greek-god of a man I had imagined.
He was better, he was -real-. Its kind of hard to describe Jetstar the person. The leader I knew online was understanding but firm, kind yet ruthless in defending his people. He seemed more like a myth then an actual person. The man that met me at that grocery store in Alameda seemed just as excited to meet me as I was to meet him. No judgement, only friendship.
Alot of that weekend runs together, so its hard to pick out isolated memories. I was starving when we finally got to his boat, and he offered me a few burgers he had left over from earlier on in the night. Sometimes when I close my eyes I can almost taste the burgers and feel the warm summer air as I laid there on Jetstar’s boat, talking about the guild and the upcoming weekend until we fell asleep.
Its memories like those that haunt me almost every day now. Like most young men I took the good things in my life for granted, and about four years later I would eventually treat Jetstar with such disrespect and treachery that it cost me one of the best friendships I’ve ever had.
So whenever I find myself angry with someone, or I find myself at the short end of the stick – wronged by someone I trusted and I want nothing more then to turn my back on someone I once trusted I think back to the mistakes I made, and what it cost me.
For the most part I wouldn’t change anything about my life, good or bad. After all it is the experiences we have had in our lives that bring us to who we are and where we are now.
Normally I find that statement to be rock solid.
Except for this one time.
Jetstar was there for me when everyone else turned their backs on me, He was there when I made a total ass of myself in front of our friends, he even was there for me when I flat out lied to him about a damn video game. Jetstar was there for me when my fiance cheated on me, and even there for me when she eventually left.
Unfortunately none of that was enough to talk some sense into me when I eventually turned my back on one of my best friends.
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