Farfelkugel!

Day 16

Today I was finally able to do what I wanted to do during my Christmas break, DO NOTHING AT HOME.  Even though it is Monday, I was off work in commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day which allowed some free time to relax at home and my activities could be summarized in 3 things: play a lot of Octopath Traveler on my switch, do a "majarete" (a Dominican style corn pudding) and watch lot of TV including but not limited to: a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory, Welcome to the Chippendales and the movie Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

The movie originally came out in 1993 and is a parody of the Robin Hood story, is silly as fuck, quotable as hell, "bad" objectively speaking, but I REALLY like this movie.  The movie itself brings me back to simpler times in my life, back to the high school days specifically (a time where this movie was already "old").  You see, it was a very popular movie among me and my some of my friends who have the same stupid sense of humor as me, we even nicknamed poor Yoshi "Farferkugel" (story incoming).

Playing Nintendo 64 was a big thing among us, and multiplayer games were at the thing to play: GoldenEye 007, Mario Kart 64, all the wrestling games, Perfect Dark, Mario Party, but a game that definitely was on a league of its own was the original Super Smash Bros.  The amount of puns, nicknames and pop-culture references we put in the game still resonates withing my OG gamer friends, which included a lot of "hate" for my favorite character to use then: Yoshi, and not to brag, but I was really good at it, so at some point my friend Carlos nicknamed him Farferkugel, based on the horse name owned by Broomhilda in the movie, you guessed it, Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

But thinking about these times also bring some bittersweet memories.  During my high school years my school friends became like brothers to me (even though I have 4) and up until this day, I'm in touch with most of them on a mostly daily basis, and even though is impossible to be close to them as before due to distance, family, responsibilities, I think we all have done a good job to keep the friendship alive but that said, the bittersweet aspect of the story comes down to my broken friendship with Carlos.

You see, between the junior and senior year, something happened, and that something is something I'm still oblivious to.  My friend started to become distant from the group of friends, but I think the most affected one by that was me since we were really close friends and even though 20+ years have passed, is a puzzle I haven't been able to solve.  This was the first, and so far, only situation where I have lost a friend, and considering how my high school years were my "safety net", it pained me a lot in retrospect.

I remember one day his mom in a joking tone said "nah, he is just being stupid" but we graduated from high school, he moved to Puerto Rico and that was the last time I saw him in person.  As years went by, someone eventually would wonder "what happened with Carlos" but nobody really knows for sure except Carlos himself. Many years ago, I noticed that he had added me to Xbox Live to play together, we did play a few times, talk about generic stuff (where are you living, how are things) but that was it.  Due to social media, I've talk to his sister on a few occasions and have asked her how his doing but that's about it.

I fucking hate that I still don't know what happened, and that I may never get an answer is just a bit depressing.  I've always cherished my friends, and the people whom I consider friends I hold them in very high esteem even if sometimes I don't act like it or express it more vividly. As time goes on some friendships become stronger and others fizzle out, but the love and respect will always be there.  

It happens that I haven't seen certain friend in ages but when do get together it feels that time hasn't moved on and we could pick up exactly where we left, and that's when I get very happy with myself, knowing that sometimes I am (was) able to establish really good relationships.  

I may not say it often (if ever), but know that if you are my friend, I do love you a lot.

Broomhilda calling Farfelkugel

Watch it on youtube: Youtube Link