Monday, February 21, 2011

I swear I haven't given up...

I just don't have much going on right now--it's all been more of the same.  I'm thinking mostly about all the same things: money, jobs, hockey, men, and friends.  Oh and Sweden.

That's not to say that I'm not very creative.  I've always considered myself a pretty creative person, but the last thing I want is for this blog to be artificial.  I want it to reflect me, my sense of humor, my present struggles or joys or just...whatever I'm actually thinking about.  I don't want to CREATE a topic just so I can have something to write about (which is one reason why I'll never be able to make money from writing).

There is something I've been thinking about though.  It's something that has taken so many manifestations in my life in the last few months that I think I need to sit down and work it out.  This issue is, once again, related to my friendships.  But more specifically, it's about how my friendships change.

I've had the same best friend since I was ten years old.  Sure, there have been times when we drifted a bit, but the last time I genuinely felt like we weren't best friends was way back in middle school, after I moved away from our neighborhood and she moved away from our town.  Especially for young people, that distance should have effectively ended our friendship.  I think maybe over the course of one year, we only spoke a few times, and mostly on the internet (Palace Chat, anyone?), but just because we realized we really didn't want to grow apart, somehow we both started making an effort to grow closer again.  Part of it is because we could probably go for years without talking, and when we spoke again, everything would feel the same.  It's inexplicable and special.

As lovely as that all sounds, I do have other close friends.  I wish that I could say that I'm as attentive to all of them as I should be, but I'm not.  It has nothing to do with loss of interest or loss of affection.  I have only ever purposely ended one friendship in my whole life, and these days, I'm beginning to regret that decision.  Like the karmic forces of the universe are paying me back for how I handled that situation.  But this person I cut out of my life was horrible to me in many ways, and in the end, I think it was genuinely beneficial for both of us that we aren't friends.  In actuality, I think if said forces are messing with me for any reason, it should be because I have neglected actually meaningful relationships in my life.

There's a lot more I could say on the topic, but I'm feeling conflicted and guilty right now, so I'll just leave you with my conflict and guilt.  At other times I feel angry and justified, and still at others, I feel bittersweet pangs of nostalgia.  The way things used to be--on one hand, reminiscing gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, but on the other, it leaves me hollow because things can almost never be the way they used to be.  That's why they are not still currently that way.  Something changed.  Something shifted.  And usually that something is irreversible.  I'm not saying it's always a bad change, of course, and I am definitely NOT saying that it can't be overcome or...managed, I guess is a more appropriate word.  If my best friend and I had never changed or dealt with the many shifts in our friendship, then we'd still be ditching each other on the playground as 20-somethings, and that would be...awkward.

I guess the bottom line I'm trying to reach is this: I love my friends, even if I sometimes get caught up in other crap.  Even though people change and relationships change, those people and those relationships are still important to me, and I can only hope that as I change, I'm still important to the people who are important to me.

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