Old Friends

So. I've only blogged here thrice in the last five months.

I'm not entirely sure why.  I think, mostly, I just haven't had the urge to write about anything relating to myself.  I've (mostly) kept up with my other fiction projects, but haven't posted anything here in a while. Oh well.  I think I'm gonna try and actually do that "daily posting" thing that I said I'd do a while back.

So I went back through my old MySpace account (just for the heck of it) and looked through my message inbox from 2006-2008.

Man, it's SO weird.  It feels like it was a whole different life.

Through reading my old conversations, one thing really jumped out at me: I had really, amazingly wonderful friends back then.

Now, if you're reading this, you're probably one of my "new friends" that I got after I graduated high school.  I don't mean to say that any of my current friends aren't still amazing. ('cause I really have met a ton of great people in the last few years.  Robert, Bree, Steph, etc.)  But there was definitely something different back then.  I don't know what it was.

Maybe it was that my high school friends and I were more "innocent" back then.  Maybe it was that we'd grown up together.  I mean, they were there when my dad died.  They supported me, prayed for me, adopted me, and were about as loving and affectionate of a family as I've ever had (my dad aside).

I read through a ton of messages tonight.  Was very surprised by what I found.  I had friends that were sweet and generous for the sake of being sweet and generous.  It's so, so bizarre, reading it all now.

Before my Senior Prom (in June of 2007), things were very very different.  I was a very different person.  I was more than a little clingy, but otherwise pretty normal.  I remember one friend in particular; every now and then I'd say (over MySpace mail) something overly clingy or (non-romantically) affectionate to her.  But she wouldn't get weirded out, or anything like that.  She'd just respond with a smilie and words of friendship.

I really can't describe what things like that meant to me. That kind of warmth and love. I don't even think I realized how important it was at the time.

Eventually, after the prom, my friends sort of faded away.  I graduated immediately after that, and suddenly didn't have my "family" anymore.  I moved to a new house, went to college full-time, started working part-time, and had no one.  Meanwhile, all I could do was focus on how my life wasn't where I wanted it to be; how my "dreams" weren't working out.  It tore me apart.

I kinda went psycho.  Every bulletin I put up on MySpace was an angry, selfish rant.  It was terrible.  I probably pushed a lot of people away because of it.

That same friend from before eventually got too busy with life to keep in contact with me.  She also somewhat got annoyed with me. I don't think it was entirely my fault, but I probably didn't help it much. She moved on with life, and I didn't, exactly. I don't think I really knew how.

Over the last two years or so, I kind of "stabilized."  I stopped being so emotionally unstable.  But I also got worse than I'd ever been.
I simply got used to living without love; without true friendship.  I had a few friends here and there, sure, but I'd see them so infrequently and with so little intimacy that it really only got me by to a certain extent.  I just became jaded, unmotivated, and completely unhappy.

The real thing—that "feeling"—that I got from my old friends—and that which I later lost—was God's love.  That's always what it was.
It's not their job to still be there for me; it's my job to make sure that I realize that God is there for me.

I probably won't get back a lot of the people that have moved on to their own very separate lives now, but I don't need to.

My friend wrote this and sent it to me back in 2007:

and so I realize everyone is changing.
people who used to be shy, now outgoing.
its insane to see people I knew when I was 5 now driving.
people who said they would never do something,
do exactly what they said they'd never do.
i guess all this change caught me by surprise.
but i also realized i've changed too.
i guess i never noticed so much because
i never realized how much I've changed myself.
anyway, just my thoughts.

life goes on.

the simple days are gone.
and so begins reality.
so begins the realization that nothing ever stays the same.
differences appear.
years go by and time wastes.
but memories are gained.
still, nothing ever stays the same.
at the same time,
life would be boring with nothing new to come.
and so, the simple days are gone,
but new tomorrows will become.

I think, at the time, I didn't really pay it much notice. Just another one of the hundreds of poems and abstract musings that high school seniors wrote at the time.
But now, looking back, it means more than I ever realized.  I miss her (and others) dearly.  But that's okay.  I'll be okay.  :)