Faith

Almost every time I think about May, I think about how the rapper Eminem once said in an interview that he would never dare mention the Beastie Boys on a rap song, because his respect for them was so profound that he didn't want to risk the remote chance that they would take it the wrong way. That must be why there's never been a May-centric blog entry in the four year history of this site.

All things considered, and with all due respect to my MySpace Top Friends, especially Dave who I've been parading around these parts for years as my Hombre Numero Uno, May is probably the best friend I've ever had. We went to different colleges, but there weren't too many days in which we didn't make an attempt to talk to each other during those years. It was a fair trade; I would amuse her with a story, and in return she would promise not to use it against me as blackmail.

Okay, I lied earlier. Every time I think about May, I don't think about Eminem. I think about that one night in San Diego when she was considering moving out there to start a new life and how I came along for moral support, but was secretly hoping she'd find the town boring and inadequate, and that she'd stay in Milwaukee where she belonged, or better yet move down to Chicago. I remember how late at night it was, and how she was kicking sand around on some beach in La Jolla, and how sad she looked as she stared at something in the distance.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked.

"I'm just trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do," she said weakly.

It was the summer after May had graduated from college, where life was suddenly moving very fast and everything around her seemed uncertain. I think not being able to see five years into the future scared her.

"Well I hope you don't lose your mind and follow through on this idea," I said, kicking sand back at her feet. "Because San Diego is two time zones away, and I'm not staying up late to talk to you."

For a minute there May really appreciated me. She knew how much she would miss me and she smiled her May-smile, a smile that if someone bottled it up and shipped it to Darfur, a lot of the world's problems would go away, and she said, "I wish we had gone to the same school together during college."

And I said, "Just move to Chicago. We could hang out every day. We could be neighbors."

...

Fast-forward to four years later, the four-years-later that May wanted but wasn't sure would happen, and I'm somehow in a living room in Milwaukee with May and her husband, terrified because I'm holding their newborn daughter in my arms.

It's crazy how fast things can happen, how disorienting the room itself can be when you're trying to comprehend the fact that your May is a mother now, and you're still you. But even though we never became neighbors, even though the dynamic has changed and we're not nearly as close as we were in college, one thing does remain the same: the way I feel inside whenever May is sad.

Dragging her feet out of her bedroom and repeating "Sorry... sorry..." to all of her guests because she had disappeared for most of the night while struggling with the frustrating task of breastfeeding her baby, May looked crest-fallen and defeated. I had trouble thinking of a good way to execute a joke about "latching" so I decided to say nothing at all.

But the night wasn't a total bummer, because after they forced me to hold their baby, I actually became a little comfortable doing it. I found it amazing. To May and her husband and their circle of married friends, babies are kind of business as usual for all of them. But to me, as an outsider whose friends haven't grown up yet, it was a very big deal.

I looked into the little one's dark blue eyes and realized that from now on whenever I'd think about May I'd think about how happy I was when I got that text message last weekend and found out they named her Faith. Faith sneezed onto my face and smiled quickly and I thought about how the potential was all there for her to become an off-the-charts cute baby, but for now she still resembled a space alien like all newborns do. And as May quietly took a picture of me holding her child I leaned close to that cute alien, the alien daughter of one of my best friends, and I whispered, "Welcome to Earth."