Split Personality

"Split personality, split personality. I can't control my split personality." - UTFO/Split Personality

Ya' gotta be true old school rap to know who UTFO even is, much less know this song.

Today that song lyric describes how I'm feeling about life, in general. I'm feeling highly nostalgic and very torn between my priorities.

At a time when I'm experiencing a high in my career, I was just dealt a low in my personal life. One of my closest friends died last night. It wasn't expected. Not sure death ever is, even when it is.

Eddie was one of five of my best friends. He was a brother to me. We met when I was a soph and he was a junior. He flirted with me then tried to cheat off my algebra quiz and a friendship blossomed from there.

When the rest of us were license-less, Eddie had a license and a car. He drove us around everywhere, first in this beat up blue...Chevrolet, I think. Then he upgraded to a brand new Cavalier. One night he drove down the wrong way as we entered the Marley Station Mall.

Forgot to say, Eddie wore glasses and had terrible night vision! But no one else had a license, so he had to drive. It was one of the scariest and funniest moments ever. Us screaming that he was going the wrong way and him laughing. No other car tried to exit, at the time. Lucky for us.

He looked older than he was. So him and Rodney were able to buy beer and wine coolers when they were only 17 and 18. One time we tried to "get rid" of the evidence and Eddie called himself throwing the bottles into the woods behind my house.

The next day my father found them at the edge of the yard. We ribbed Eddie for years about how weak his arm was and how just one little umph of strength would have gotten the bottle into the woods enough to be ignored by my father cutting the grass.

Despite our antics we never got into any real trouble. And my years with the clique were so powerful that my YA books are pretty much dedicated to that period in my life.

High school doesn't feel that far away. I knew Eddie for 21 years. But like my husband pointed out last night, that wasn't long enough. I certainly thought I'd look back on our friendship many years from now and still laugh about the same old things that bonded us.

But now there are five of us instead of six and I feel split between the 15 year old me and the 35 year old me. I ache for Eddie's family. He was the man of his family once his dad passed in '98. He moved back in with his mom about four years ago to make life easier on her. And now he's gone, leaving his mom, two sisters, many, many friends and the clique to mourn him.

R.I.P. Big Ed!