Today I found out my friend Israel died.
I've known Izzy since we were in high school choir together and I'm not going to lie and say we were best friends, because we weren't really too close but we were friends and he was a great guy.
In high school we didn't really talk a lot, in fact we didn't really start talking till a few years later when he started showing up at parties at my friend's house. On New Year's Eve going into 2006 he got me really drunk on Absinthe and this 70% alc. vol. licorice flavoured stuff that his dad had brought over from Prague for him and I'm pretty sure we made out that night but I don't really remember because we had got that excuciatingally drunk... but after that point it definitely started my spree of finding someone to kiss every time I drink.
I remember him calling me up a lot after that because I had told him I liked him... but I didn't really have feelings for him so I screened his calls until I ran into him a few months later when I went with some friends to see my first internationally renowned DJ, Lisa Lashes. I ditched my friends and danced the night away with him. He was a wild dancer. Izzy was just wild in general.
I remember hearing he had cancer the first night when I was at his friend's party and asking where he was. I don't remember at what point in time that was because that whole year is a bit of a blur to me but I know it was later on in the year, and I know a different close friend of mine from an entirely different group was banging him. HAHA the day I put two and two together and found out it was him was pretty funny.
I can't say I knew Israel as well as people who were really close to him. I can't say I was the nicest person to him. I can say he was the wildest and craziest out of all of my friends... and I have a lot of wild and crazy friends. A lot. So that, is saying something. I can also tell you that he could sing. Really, really well. I can also say he was there on probably the most important day of my life when I decided to change my life around and live life to it's fullest and live out my dreams. He was there, and all of his beautiful hair was gone, and he was drunk as fuck having the best time of his life, but Izzy always acted like it was the best day of his life even before he was diagnosed with leukemia.
He had moved out to BC a couple months ago, again reentering my life, and called me when he was in Van looking for pot, which I couldn't find for him. He said he was coming out the next Friday to party with me but then he said he had to go back to Winnipeg for a bit and then he sent me a text a while later saying he was living in Kelowna. So today I went to his facebook because I had switched phones and lost his number, and I was going to invite him to party with us on Canada Day in the Okanagan but there were a hundred wall posts of his friends personal RIP's. I think he probably died a month ago... judging by that. I will find out for sure when I go to Winnipeg next week.
I didn't think I'd feel so sad about it. I think it's because I was jealous. Not of his life necessarily, but of his ability to live with no limits and no regrets. I have always tried to live my life without them because there's no point in dwelling on something you can't change, and if you limit yourself while living, you'll never know the full extent of your being.
Since that day that I decided to change my life around, I can say I've stopped limiting myself, for the most part. But today alone I've thought of a few regrets that I thought I'd put behind me.
One being that I didn't know Israel better, and I didn't do anything to make contact with him for a month after I found out he was living so close, even though I had heard he wasn't doing well. I wish we had sang together again, and that I had taken more pictures, and that we'd hit up Armin one more time.
Another being that I don't take care of myself well enough, and I don't do anything to change it. I smoke, and drink, and charge my body with caffeine while eating very irregularly and often unhealthy, and other than walking I don't get nearly enough excercise. For someone who loves life so much, I don't do enough to cherish it.
The last being my best friend Blayze from high school. I've never been able to let this one go. He was always there for me, and when he needed me most I wasn't there. Not only that, I put him down in a cruel way, and then left the province. Right before graduation. I didn't do it to intentionally hurt him, but, at the time I was selfish and didn't care if I did and the way his life is going now, I wonder if I had been there for him at the time if I could have helped him into a better life. If he ever reads this, I hope he knows how sorry I am and five years later I would still do everything I could for him.
Israel, I'm glad to have had you in my life, and you may not have known it, but you were an inspiration to me and I hope you're happy whereever you are and that there are hot angels fighting over you and getting you drunk. You will be missed.
Kari, Izzy (being Izzy), Amanda, and Alyson in the limo on the way to see Armin Van Buuren.
