It just felt like I lost the fight for the heavyweight championship, after you thought I dominated the whole fight, but got knocked out by one lucky punch in the 14^th round. It just wasn’t fair. The friendship that Chris and I shared wasn’t just a hey or how you doing, it was more than that. However by the time 9^th grade came around all of that would change.

Chris Sell was and still is my best friend. He lived right down the block from me and we would always hang together. I remember when we first meet in the 1^st grade. Ironically we met because we both got in trouble and we were given timeouts, and for the next 7 years we would become the best of friends.

I remember the summer going into ninth grade when Chris first told me, “They’re planning to get married in a month and that’s not the bad news. We might have to move away to go live with him.”

But only a month after we found out about their marriage, the news of his moving was finally told to us. It was one of the worst days of my entire life. I felt so confused; I was angry, upset, overwhelmed, and distressed all at the same time.

I remember the day that Chris’ mom told us.

“Honey, I know that this may hurt a lot. This is something that we all have to deal with and it isn’t easy for any of us. But sometimes things like these happen. We all love you and we still want you to see Chris whenever you can and still be friends.”

I had no response and just sat there nodding my head. It was like I was completely zoned out not knowing what just happened.

Soon the day finally came when Chris and I would be in his home for the very last time. Everything was so empty and quiet, not a thing in sight. We walked through the rooms and reminisced about our fun, happy, and troublesome experiences we had. We walked around to his back and front yard because they were just as important as well. The first stop was his room where we starred in and didn’t know what to say.

So I decided to say something first, “Hey remember our first sleep over together. We never even went to bed and instead snuck out of your room and watch TV the whole night.”

Chris laughed, “Ha-ha, yeah I remember that. Remember on the days we couldn’t go outside we would go in my room and trade baseball cards all day.”

I felt sad, but I realized it was good to laugh at this time too.

Next was the living room where we stood where his big comfy couch used to be. I told him, “Your big couch that used to be here. We would always watch TV on it.”

Chris smiling, “Yeah, remember when we watched Con Air in here and there was that part where we laughed so hard we started to cry? Ha-ha you fell off the couch laughing because you were laughing so hard.”

We left the room laughing. We then went into what was almost Chris’ second bedroom, the attic.

“We must have spent nearly a quarter of our life up here,” I said. All we did was watch TV and especially play video games. That’s all we ever did.”

“Yeah I know, my mom would always yell at us to go outside because it was a beautiful day." She said it like every single freaking day. We would always play Goldeneye. That was the best game of all. Then we played NHL, NBA, Ken Griffey Baseball, which was a close second best. Then there was NASCAR and Let’s Get Ready to Rumble Boxing. N64 was the best of everything I owned, it’s brought back so many memories.” Chris said looking around the attic.

“I know, but now everything is so empty” I let go with a sigh.

We then walked out to the kitchen into the porch. “I’m thinking off all the times we did our homework out here after school like everyday. We would get home, do our homework first and then go play video games. It was like the same routine everyday.” Chris said.

I looked around the house for what would be the last time and grimaced at the fact that this would be gone.

We decided to go take a walk outside to look around for one last time.

“Looking in your backyard makes me remember sooooooooo many things we did.” I declared. “We played wiffle ball, had water fights and manhunt out here.”

“Yeah, remember we would always break and burn things out here. We were such little assholes.” Chris responded with a smirk.

We walked down the driveway and looked out on the street. “We always played baseball out here and had to move out of the way when those stupid cars came. They always pissed me off.” Chris yelled.

“Yeah and remember we had those snowball fights out here and you broke your window. We even threw snowballs at cars and ran when they stopped. Man that was so fun.” I said.

“Oh my god, how could we forget about riding our bikes all the time.” Chris reacted with a smile.

We then sat on his front yard looking out onto the street for the last time together. Once I finally realized that this was real and that we wouldn’t be the same old right down the block neighborhood friends anymore my only response with a grim face was, “It’s been real Chris.”

That day I realized that the best things in life sometimes come to an end and that life isn’t always fair. But it’s those aspects that you have to overcome and go around. Chris’ move helped me build strength and devotion to our friendship and to the things that I still do have in my life. Like school and my family. So his moving away made me a better person within my family and towards my schoolwork. It turned out to become a tremendous motivational factor.