Brandon and I drove down the streets of NoDa, pulling in to Benny’s pizza. We ordered one giant slice of pepperoni pizza for each of us on a disproportionately small paper plate. Pam and Nate walked in behind us. We greeted, we laughed, we sat and ate together during a summer that feels like it was a lifetime ago. When we finished our pizzas Brandon and Nate drove over to Abari to play arcade games. Pam and I went back to their place in first ward to knit together and watch a show we’d binge every Wednesday night. For about a solid year we’d do this same routine, every Wednesday night. After landing in Charlotte 2 years prior we’d finally found our community and had made solid friends that we were doing life with. Our time together was golden and it felt like it’d last forever. In the midst of weekly routines like this one you never think about when it’s going to end, until one day it inevitably does and you long for it in a grievous way that you long for times that you know you can never get back. (more…)