A few days ago, one of my classmates from high school mentioned on Facebook that after a long time away, he and his family had moved back to Albuquerque, and that he was looking forward to reconnecting with old friends. When I knew him in high school, we had been in student senate together at Eldorado High for two years. I always liked and admired him. At the same time, I also felt a bit insecure being around him. He, along with several other classmates, made up a team of defensive backs on the varsity football team. He was also a starting player on the baseball team in the spring.

He was an athlete, whereas, I was not sure what I was. I had put three years in in the Eldorado basketball program from my freshman through my junior year, and each year, I played at my grade level. At the end of my junior year, the varsity coach mentioned to me in passing on a late season road trip in a steakhouse down south somewhere that he hoped I would work hard over the summer- it was my turn next year. That quiet commendation had me hopeful that I would get to experience the fulfillment of the one goal I had had for myself as a freshman in high school- to play on the varsity team.

At the end of the school year, that coach was let go, and the new varsity coach wanted to build his program from youth in the system. When the week of tryouts in the fall ended, my name was not on a team roster. I did not make the varsity team. Despite everything else I had going on in my life- FCA, church, student senate, class president- something in me broke in the middle of my senior year. I was vetoed as an athlete. And, in some related way, I felt that slight as a critique of my manliness and manhood.

I don’t know why.

It’s funny- and strange- how much of my life has been spent trying to get people to like me, wanting people to like me, and to a great extent, wanting other men to like or connect with me. Regarding that last effort, it’s been largely because I’ve felt out of place in the world of men.

It’s been a long pattern, which I started as a youth at church, always looking for a mentor, someone older, who would teach me about God, the Scriptures, and as a consequence, life.

As I got older, though, because I felt awkward as a guy, clumsy with mechanical problems and knowing cars and throwing balls, I mostly went the other way then. I chose not to enter in with other men, other grown ups, because when I did, I felt lost quite a bit.

And in the process I quit asking questions and stopped asking other men things that help men to become men- questions about being strong, being good, being loyal, being responsible, being dependable. And how to forget yourself and stand in the gap.

Thirty-some years later, and I find myself largely in the same place as I was as that teenager, because in some ways I cut myself out of that path which helps some men to become stronger, better, more loyal, more responsible, more dependable. I did not have a family. I didn’t accept the yoke of growing up and having to extemporaneously deal with issues and carry a home and a wife and kids and make ends meet. I slid through my younger years avoiding all of that.

Out of doubts and fears.

A panic wells up in me off and on now as I approach fifty and the same adolescent questions stick with me. My same tendency to want to hole away from others drives me still. My need for acceptance and wish for the camaraderie of brothers also remain, the latter for the hardening and increase of wisdom I bypassed growing up.

But now I am not sure how to find those things any more. It’s a strange age to try and make “lifelong friends”. Especially when those are mostly foreign to you.

I will try to lean on what I have now more- my two or three local brothers who I do not see often, but know that I need.

And like the kid in church who asked elders about God and the Scriptures, I have to also lean on the guidance they offered to me back then about Him. He is the giver of hope, and the giver of help. You just have to patiently ask Him and trust in Him.

I told that football-playing friend at our class reunion last year that I always liked him and always wanted to be a friend of his. Now that he is back in town, I am also reminded of how different our life paths went and how different our lives are now. And I doubt I have much to offer him, as I often feel about what I have to offer anyone. I am not good at being friends with people. But we all still want friends.

I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know what to do with him. I don’t know what to do with myself most of the time.

Welcome back, Paul. I always thought you were an awesome dude. I hope your reconnecting with old friends is deep and refreshing, like the underground spring discovered by the diving roots of a thirsty tree.