sacramento apartments

My best friend from high school moved to California a few years ago. We used to be really close but she's living a life that seems strange and distant to me right now. She hasn't really gone back to school, though she originally meant to. She works at a drugstore, hangs out with her older brother, gets high a lot. Drinks a lot. Has friends who are really unmotivated. She used to be motivated, or seem motivated. Now, when she talks about moving out of her father's house, I just nod my head, say 'Mmm-hmm' over the phone.

 

'I'm looking at apartments in Sacramento,' she says.

 

'Mmm-hmm.'

 

'Downtown Sacramento apartments are pretty good. I have a friend who lives there. He says he knows how I could get a good deal.'

 

'Mmm-hmm.' But I know in three months' time, when we talk, she'll just have moved down the street to her brother's again, and Sacramento apartments will be a fast-faded dream.

 

It's not that I judge her for living her life the way she does. The physical distance would already be a factor – but we have this emotional distance between us, too. I mean, maybe I do judge her, a little bit. Or not her but the people she spends her time with. I don't want her to end up like them. Her brother's pushing thirty and still works for an exterminator. He and his girlfriend got married recently because he knocked her up. Once when I visited they showed me how to make a bong out of an apple. Their idea of a good time is getting high and playing Guitar Hero for hours with the baby in the next room.

 

What do you do when you have a family like that? How do you escape those influences? Plenty of people do it. I haven't had to, and never will, so I can't pretend to know what it's like, and I can't say 'You should this' or 'Why don't you that.' And it's probably selfish of me to let this distance grow between us, but I don't like to talk to her, because all that happens is I get scared, seeing what she's becoming – or inheriting.