Songs of Old...

I got a call yesterday, just as I was leaving Church. When I answered, the voice said, “It’s about time you answered your phone!”

Now, for those of you who know me, you might know that that is a phrase I hear quite often. I’m notorious for responding to phone messages a week late, if at all. But this call was different, because I immediately recognized the voice, and the voice belonged to Brice Singer.

I may have mentioned Brice before, but just in case I haven’t, Brice belongs to the beginning parts of my life, way back in the days of Mister Saul and Doublemint. But Brice was more my age.

Due to reasons of my own, I don’t like to get graphic with this blog. It isn’t my intent to share dirty secrets or fill minds with things that will only harm them. But I feel it is somewhat necessary to say that I had a lot of love affairs in my earlier years. But from start to finish, there were only two guys who could ever claim my affection. I’ve already shared the sad ballad of Nick Pine. But the first was Brice Singer.

So you can probably imagine how I felt when I got the phone call. I felt an old elation that I hadn’t felt for him in a long time. It was as if it really hadn’t been ten years since we last saw each other. But I also felt instant dread. I’m Mormon now. I’m nothing of what he used to know. And yet, while we talked, he assured me that, “cult or no,” he would always be my friend.

I was talking to Carol Wanderly about this phone call and, like she often does when I bring up these kinds of instances, she became few in words. And I realized that it was probably uncomfortable for her to hear of stories like that. It made me also realize that even though Brice would always accept me, it wasn’t his approval I was striving for. For that matter, it wasn’t that of Carol’s. My aim since I joined the Church has been and always will be to please my Father in Heaven and it is his approval that I need to keep in mind.

It would be all too easy to slip into a friendship with Brice. He’s smart, funny, and generally a handsome guy. But I am just not sure if my motives would be in the right place. There are times when I think that it is safer to let some people go. Harder, but safer.

What are you thinking, readers? Do you think I’m cold? Analytical, perhaps? Well, perhaps I am. Perhaps I’m quite selfish, thinking only of my own happiness and not that of old friends… old relations…