💾 Archived View for rooster.smol.pub › tj1 captured on 2023-06-16 at 16:14:58. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2022-06-03)
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I miss him, but not the whole him. When we were kids, we had our ups and downs. But we were always together. We didn't really know anyone else. We grew up away from everyone else---both parents always at work, on our own a lot, in the middle of nowhere. We were close, but we didn't always like each other. Once we were both teens, we really grew apart. He was a sporto. I was a weirdo.
All of that changed when we were in our 20s. Suddenly we weren't very different again. In fact, we were more alike with one another than we were with anyone else. We spent the next 15 years just enjoying hanging out---when we could. I had moved away from our home state. He stayed. But I would visit at least every year, and each time I came back, I would stay with him and his girlfriend-->fiance-->wife-->children. And I would of course bring my fiance-->wife-->girlfriend. We all started having a blast together. And Brandon was living his best life back home. He bought a house with his girlfriend. They bought a dog. And he bought his first brand new car---a 2003 Jeep Wrangler X (a "TJ"). He loved it, and it represented his growing up into the man he wanted to be. He was young and free and capable. And he was happy. Those were very good times.