Kevin Bacon Has Left the Building

People have always called me Kevin Bacon.

Not because I look like him or have starred in a plethora of random things, but because I tend to be somehow connected to the entire planet. Over the course of my almost 32 (GASP!) years I have come to know people of all walks of life, from all over and know or are related to half the world.

I was always what you would call a people person. Never shy or reserved. I would basically strike up a conversation with a lamp post and from then on I had a new friend.

From the moment I could talk I was charming strangers. Using random wit and candor and winning over the masses.

I always had people I could call on, or moreover who would call on me.

Plans were incessant. I was always out on the town with this group or that, living it up. The proverbial life of the party. I would dance like a jackass to make people laugh, I would spew sarcasm and giddiness.

It's funny how things change.

I no longer find myself fielding calls from friends. No longer asked random advice about this or that. No longer do I get those "What are you doing this weekend" kind of calls.

All those uber close friends, that spanned my childhood through college, are all married with children. With different circles of friends now. Sure we feign most of the time we are still the best of pals, but our social gatherings have more recently amounted to showers and christenings, and sadly parent funerals.

No more lackadaisical multi hour conversations about random things. It's a bi-monthly email or Facebook post basically checking our pulses.

Then there were those friends you needed to weed out for your sanity. Those venomous friends, who though you had fun with, somehow brought with them a wake of drama that in your 30's you knew better than to keep around.

And in that drama free zone, in that supposed zen-ness you had tried to create for yourself, much like the Neverending Story, comes the Great Nothing.

You find yourself a week before your birthday and realizing you have nothing left. No more of those people you once called your best friends. No more calls for a night out, or even a daily check-in on the what's what's and who's who's.

I mean sure there are a couple dieharsds holding tight to that, and they try, they do. But things are never quite what they were. They have their own lives that take priority over what once was. It happens.

You remember a time where if you ever needed anything, from advice to help moving, that there would be a line at the door. A never ending stream of people who seemed to care about you and whatever they could do to help you.

No need for that deli counter now. The ranks have all changed. Sure you still know everyone, but do they really know you? You can smile and wave and reminisce about the old days, the fun you once had, but then it's back to your lives.

Alone.

I know that in time a lot of people grow apart. That old friends fade and new ones are supposed to be lurking on the horizon. Friends you've made from schools and jobs and through significant others. Your circles change, it's the way of the world.

But what do you do when those circles, those supposed infinitive circumferences just disappear? Leave you feeling you've no one to call when things are tough, no one to call when you just want to go out for a quick drink and chat about god-knows-what? What do you do then?

What happens when you wake up one day and realize its all slipped through your fingers? You just wake to realize you have no one left. That everything has become plastic and phony. All the real friends you felt you had have somehow faded into the background of your life. Not due necessarily to any specific event, but over time. Faded as the colors on a flag do in the sun.

I guess Kevin Bacon has left the buiding.