Drinking a Capri-Sun in my 30s unlocked childhood memories that re-adjusted the way I think of myself

I don't have any friends. Not really. I met a girl a few years ago. We got close, started holding hands, started kissing. Now we're married. I have a brother to whom I am very close. I have a couple childhood best-friends who I see once or twice a year now. My wife has a couple co-worker friends I get to mingle with every one-to-two months. I have my own coworkers, but they're not friends. There have been a few people over the past four years who I tried to get close to. But it is so hard. I get too embarrassed to interact. And I probably use excuses to save myself from that vulnerability. Like, "I gotta have my wife with me if I wanna hang out with anyone else - especially if this potential friend of mine is a girl". "Our work/school schedules don't match up for us to hang out".

I've been like this for as long as I can remember, being friendless, that is. I don't know what my excuses were, if there even ever were excuses. I'm just bad a making friends, and in retrospect, I realize things I could have done better. But in the moment - maybe even this moment - I couldn't see myself and the fixable flaws I had. I have always wondered "Why can't I make friends?"

Besides, my work schedule is a little different than others' these days. At my job, where most work something like 6AM-4PM, I and a few others do something like 11AM-9pm.

One day recently, HR sent out a text to everyone at work and said something like "Come to the HR office and grab a drink!". Because I get there when most are already on their lunch break, the cooler in HR was mostly empty of sodas when I got there. The cooler had many water bottles (which HR nerd decided on that?) and several Capri-Suns.

!!!

I grabbed two. I saved the Pacific Cooler for later, since I was pretty sure I remember that being the good one. And I drank the Strawberry Kiwi while working. It tasted exactly as I had remembered it, all those years ago.

Aside from one time in like 2021 when my extended family spent Easter at our grandma's house, I haven't had a Capri-sun since elementary school. Probably. 3 years ago feels like nothing when you're 31. I really do think the last time I had one, realistically could have been in elementary school, 2005, at the most recent. I only ever had cold-lunches in elementary, then in junior high and high school I got hot-lunches, so there is a good chance that I simply never had a Capri-Sun after 6th grade. Until now.

I wouldn't drink Capri-Suns at home. Those were for lunches. I would have my homemade lunch with a caprisun, then go out to the playground for lunch recess, the longest recess of the day. I didn't have many friends. Or I should say, friends, plural. I had a friend. Our moms were friends, our older brothers were friends, we went to the same school, and we went to the same church. As a kid, I would have told you we were best friends for ... for some complex reason. But, looking back, I'm sure it was just all of those convenient outer factors. Not to say our friendship didn't maintain due to complex reasons, but it sure started out of convenience.

The only inconvenience was that he was one year younger than me, and still is. As such, we only ever got to play during recess every-other year. 1st and 2nd graders had recess together, 3rd and 4th, 5th and 6th. We were in 1st and 2nd when we met. I don't really remember what I did during recess in 3rd grade, but I remember the shock on that very first recess in 3rd grade when we were released outside and I realized I had no one to play with, nowhere to go, nothing to do. I tried to make friends or at least acquaintances, but even to this day, I am very bad at making friends.

4th grade: good

5th grade: alone again. But I remember what I did during recess in 5th grade.

There were many cool books, movies, and other such things that captured my imagination in those days. It was the early-to-mid 2000s, and cool movies were coming out, like the Star Wars prequels, and The Lord of the Rings. I was obsessed with those. So, during recess, instead of making real friends and interacting with people with their own consciousness separate from my own, I had imaginary friends, imaginary enemies, imaginary allies, and imaginary adventures based on the cool movies and other fictional worlds I was interested in at the time.

In addition to SW and LotR, I also loved The Dark Crystal and Back to the Future. Every day at recess, especially lunch recess, since it was the longest recess of the day, I would continue my epic adventure saga that drew inspiration from these favorited franchises. To an outsider, it looked like Parker was just aimlessly and speechlessly wandering the expanse of playground and field all by himself. But in my head, I was on an adventure, with enemies, danger, monsters, death, time-travel, fights and battles, new characters with lore, important items to keep from the hands of the enemies, terrain to traverse, locations to reach, and a completely improvised convoluted plot that I will never remember.

I would pick up where I left off every time I returned to recess. But eventually, the adventure followed me and I didn't have to be out on the playground to participate. "Real life" would go on and I would comply, but the adventure was always going on in the back of my head, whether manifested in an overlay of the "real world", or as just a story in my mind.

I drank my Capri-Sun at work, and quickly finished it. They're pretty dang small. But I would sometimes have a little burp that tasted like the Strawberry Kiki Capri-Sun, or just generally have the after-taste lingering in the back of my mouth. The last time my mouth felt this way was when I was in those days, the days I would be out on the playground, having an adventure. I was happy back then. I didn't have any friends, at least not at school during recess in 5th grade. I was all alone, and completely happy for it.

As an adult, I try to make friends. It is so hard. Hell, not even just as an adult, but as far back as high school, I would try to make friends, and never ever get anywhere. I just cannot open up to people in a way that might make them like me. I have had little-to-no hope in making any friends for over 10 years. I remember those painfully lonely months right after high school. I remember being virtually friendless my whole life, even much of my time in elementary school was lonely. I've been a lonely guy my whole life, and I always will be ...

Except, as I get Capri-Sun burps at work, I remember that I actually WAS happy in elementary school, particularly 5th grade, a year in which I could not play with my Friend during recess. I had my imagination, a world of my own. A purpose I created for myself. And I am reminded that the wo-is-me angle is not always applicable to my typically lonely life. And I can do that again. Somehow. I don't know. I wasn't even trying as a kid. I had effortless whimsy as a kid. I might not be able to get lost in an imaginary adventure at the same caliper or spirit as I had in 5th grade, but effortless whimsy can do new things to me in my adult life. I can feel complete and whole and happy.

...

Pacific Cooler isn't as good as Strawberry Kiwi.