So I have had a pretty interesting life, random crazy stuff happening that makes for great stories. Everyone has a story about some crazy adventure they were on, but who do you rate that adventure against? For me, it’s one of my friends. Before his passing he was the one person I knew who could literally walk to the shop to get a bottle of milk and end up with a crazy story to share with us. Krisko was one of those people who seem to attract crazy adventures, don’t get me wrong, I am not lacking in the crazy adventures department, but it is my brother that I rate these against.
The friendship we had was a pretty strange one in itself. Friends from primary school, we lost touch many times over the years, partly due to moving to different cities, partly due to both of us losing phones and partly because life just happened. Why is that strange? It is how the universe kept putting us back together. The amount of times we ran into one another through friends or parties could be coincidence, but more than twice we found ourselves walking toward one another, once on a bridge in Sydney and another time in a shopping centre. We also found ourselves living one or two suburbs apart, even working one or two blocks apart. Was it an astronomically slim chance of this happening, synchronicity or just the universe saying, this is your friend for life.
At his wake, we were sharing stories of the adventures we had with him, and one of my friends said, ‘we could write a book about it, but no one would believe it’ and followed it with ‘some of these stories are better off being lost’. It is true that we partied like eighties rockstars, and ended up in all manner of crazy adventures.
I have had adventures, some ridiculous, some amazing. My bucket list of things I have ticked off isn’t as interesting as the random things I have done. For example: I have walked on the top of an active volcano. I have met world leaders. I have met rockstars. I have been given the opportunity to have dinner with one of the most famous designers in the world. I was once accidentally blessed by the Pope. Or the time I was drinking bloody Mary’s and swimming in the pool at the Frank Lloyd Wright – Ennis Brown house in LA.
I may have been on some crazy adventures with Krisko, but my favourite story has always been the day I saw he was having a tough day, I told him to take the night off work so we could just hang out the back at a friends party and drink beers until the sun comes up. I call my friend and tell him I am bringing a friend with me, we rock up, and my friend takes me aside and is like, ‘do you know who that is!?!’ Krisko had a rep, and my friend freaked out a little, I told my friend to tell Kris that I said he needed a hug, it took a little convincing but he did it. After that they were all good.
The universe made Kris and I brothers, and I am very lucky to have been on adventures with him and been his friend for more than three and a half decades. Still miss the crazy adventure stories, but I still have to rate mine against his. 😉