Confucius "Confuse Us" (Day 4)

Confucius “Confuse us”

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Years ago, this little statue made it into my life through a most unfortunate turn of events.  I had befriended three guys while living in New York.  The three of them had been very close for years and they had a nice network of guys and girls they hung out with.  I was immediately accepted into the group and whammo, all of a sudden my weekends were full with parties, going to bars/clubs and all sorts of activities.  They were good chaps and I had never been welcomed so quickly into a group before.  

Around the holidays, they ended up exchanging gifts at my apartment in Queens.  Confucius was picked up by one of them as a gift to another (Names have been with held) and when they left that night it was mistakenly left at my place.  

That weekend we collectively attended a party at a posh Upper East Side apartment.  Things were going along well until something happened between the friends and one of their girlfriends.  I will claim not to know but it broke up the friendships of all of them.  

Irreversibly lost. Just as a stone disappears when it is dropped into a lake or the morning fog fades and vanishes as the sun lifts itself into the sky.  I wondered what the friendships were originally rooted in.  I had just entered the picture and was so glad to be part of a group of a big group of friends.  And then it was gone... 

But not the statue.  I tried to give it back but the guy didn’t want it anymore. So Confucius followed me the next 3 years until I opened 33 and brought him to work.  He sat in 33 every day I was open for over 8 1/2 years and on one occasion went out drinking with me and a few friends after work to Tangerine (a now defunct Washington Ave. bar that I frequented.)  I have a tendency to move him from place to place and will on occasion hide him somewhere in the bar.  But Confucius will always be here and he reminds me of a few months in my life when I saw things go unnecessarily awry for all the wrong reasons.

Confucius say, “Man who run in front of car, get tired.”