Anaheim

I should have been friends with those guys.

The whole moment symbolized our high school years. I got there late, and they had been playing for a while. As they played cards, I sat right outside of their game, watching it unfold and having the insider's perspective through Ben's cards. The conversation was, for the most part, cordialities about experiences and future plans.

Ben, a freelance writer with law school plans, remains an odd friend of mine and someone who always offered a good vibe. His oddity is a joy to get to know, from the appreciation for obscure sports and rock bands to his keen, almost gimicky idealism represented in shoes, pants, and political savvy.

Mark, Jimmy, and Byron are those guys I always knew but never got to know. The type of Asian males that I had, at one point in my life, seen as not much more than the brainy-type. But as they taught me their card game, I thought that the four years in between high school graduation and tonight taught us to put aside model minority myths and other assumptions.

Mark is going from Cal State Fullerton to two years of non-profit work in Vietnam. Jimmy is coming back from Berkeley to a consulting job in Downtown LA. Byron is leaving the Michigan cold and embracing the warmth of UCLA Law School. Ben is still going to be writing around San Francisco.

I don't think they understood the magnitude of my decision to go back to Argentina. What else could be more normal than a return trip to the place of one's birth? So, to those that always expected me back, and those who witnessed me wallowing around in Loara High School, this trip is not earth-shattering.

Those who I love most have had the harder time so far. But people understand. I'm off to reinvent myself and when I come back things won't be the same. But maybe they will be like tonight. I think they might be better.