Discarding Friends

Essays By DOUG WAHL

I spent several hours last night working on a project that 
really should have been routine. 
It wasn't. 

At the end I was overcome by an enormous sense of guilt and incredible feeling of sadness.

 It all started with the purchase of a new phonebook. It’s something that was long overdue. My current directory was given to me as a gift after graduating college. It is more than nine years old.

Do you get sentimental about inanimate objects? I do.

Yes, it was just a phonebook, but I loved the thing. It's made by out of softest brown leather, had a binder that allowed me to add more pages and had plenty of places to put business cards and pens.

After several years of loyal service, the phonebook fell apart. The binder stopped closing all the way. Some of the pages tore apart. The leather was scratched and cracked.

So my project last night was simple. All I had to do was copy the names and numbers of all my friends from the old book into the new one.

It didn't take long for me to realize that this simple project would actually take a lot of work. My old book stores the information of more than three hundred people. Their names serve as a time capsule of my life. Those inscribed in ink are my friends; at least they were once upon a time. Now, all these years later, it just didn't make sense to transfer some of them into the new book.

About Doug

For the last 10 years I've been traveling the country as a television reporter and anchor. I've made pit stops in Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

My most recent move was to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For the first time I packed up my life, not for a job, but for a woman and the search for love.

The essays on this web site are written by a man who's trying to start over and sometimes struggling with a new beginning: learning how to live with someone, finding your way around a different town, getting accustomed to a totally different culture.

The essays I write are the product of a daily diary. Like many of you I write down a number of different notes at the end of each day...after a couple of months I go back and read those notes and try to make a story out of them. The passing time gives me a proper perspective. Something that may have seemed like a crisis one day will seem humorous a few months later.

Read what I have written, and let me know what you think. I can benefit from both your kudos and your criticisms.

David Ambo was the first to go. I've known him since kindergarten
but haven't talked to him, haven't seen him in years. The number
written down next to his name is for his parents' home. I am pretty
sure they moved a few years ago. If I needed to, I wouldn't know
how to get in touch with David. However as I looked at his name,
I realized I'd probably never again really need to get in touch with
him. David Ambo didn't make the cut.  

Others would soon join him in the reject pile. They were classmates in high school and college. They were colleagues from my first few jobs. They were women I had dated, even some who I use to have serious feelings for. They were in short the names of people who once played a huge role in my life, but are now basically strangers. I may have discarded them from my phone book just last night, but I actually discarded their friendships a long time ago.

 You cannot come to that conclusion without feeling a little bit guilty. I know that the phone works both directions, but I feel like most of the blame goes to me. Why didn't I keep in touch with these people? Was I really so busy that I couldn't afford a few moments to pick up the phone? Why, after forgetting all about them, do I suddenly miss their faces?

When I came to Ken Pritchett’s space in the old phonebook I almost started to cry. The two of us worked together at one of the worst television stations in the country. The bond we built has to be something similar to what war-buddies go through; the situation around you is so bad that you need friends just to get by. It would be fun to talk to Ken, we could trade stories of “the good old days,” but sadly that is not going to happen. Ken’s number was outdated too.

The project taught me a lot about friendship. We all go through life collecting people. We choose some because we share interests or goals. We choose others because we have to…they’re family. The vast majority of the people we collect are chosen out of proximity. We like to be around them because they’re near us. Access makes maintaining a friendship so much easier.

Of the three hundred names only about a third made the transition into my new phonebook. I am grateful for those friends who are still in my life. But one day, perhaps nine years from now, it will be time to buy another directory and I cannot help but wonder how many of these individuals will move with me again.

My night started off by getting sentimental over a material possession. It saddened me to think that I would be losing something so familiar. By the end of the project, I knew that some of the most familiar parts of my life were already gone.    


Doug Wahl is the owner of Going To Write Dot Com.  A visit to his site will reveal about three dozen other essays of this stature, including "A Flawless Definition of Love"  

Here is a parting message from Doug:

In the upstairs hallway, in my small townhouse, hangs a painting. It is the only work of art that I own. The painting is the product of a friend of mine, Lisa Solis.

Artists, like writers, live to express themselves. We either want to fill a blank computer screen with words of meaning, or a fill a blank canvas with an image so beautiful that others stand back in awe. The problem is before you get to that point you first have to travel through a lot of failure and rejection. That's why artists and writers need to stick together.

So click on Lisa's webpage and check out her art...I think you'll understand why I probably hang one of her works on my wall. Art Moderno .com

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Man, the Meanie of the Planet.  This is a high resolution pdf document so you can print it out and hang it on the wall.  Be sure to RIGHT Click the link, and save it to your computer.

The Almost Good Housekeeping monograph is a good excuse for the harried homemaker to put off until tomorrow all those burdens of yesteryear, and quit trying so hard.

Sex before the Sax:  The first thing I learned about Lois was she had a label for being froward.  Kids at school said she had had sex with Alfred.  Not long after I arrived, another boy came forward to admit he had made a score at her door.

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Old Rattler, and the King Snake. 

Pleasures of the open fire: The Fireplace Revisited.

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