"Self-sufficient." Well, that's one way of putting it...

In one sense, I really admire people who can just let things roll off their backs, who can just let go and move forward without looking back. People who never seem to lose, but to leave. In another sense, I wouldn't want to be like that, for fear of taking for granted everything I do have. How can you appreciate what you have if you never mind leaving it for something else?

To find beauty in that moment of loss and departure, for me, means reconciling the two. Appreciating that you're losing something great but having the strength to leave it for something new. It's a peculiar balance.

I wrote something about that once. Junior year I guess. Let me see if I can find it.

Mmm. Here:

I've come to the realization that I'm addicted to sunsets and Island Heights. They're such good company - sunsets I mean - silent, never the same for more than a couple minutes, warm, and so full of beauty, that they're incapable of failing to soothe even my worst mood. Of course, they leave one feeling rather lonely when they end and drain the rest of the color from the sky, but it's that way with people too - only with sunsets, you just have to leave them before they leave you. Thinking about it, I suppose that could work with people too, if you're self-sufficient enough. Or if the people are really bad company. : )

Yes, I did include the smiley face when I originally wrote that. I really was addicted to watching the sunset in Island Heights back then. In April and May, I'd go almost every night after dinner and sit there on my favorite bench in my favorite park and watch the sun set over the river. Sometimes I'd take pictures. Usually I'd bring a blanket and sometimes my mp3 player and would just stew. Depending on my mood, I'd either stay til dusk had passed, or I'd leave just as the sun disappeared below the horizon, before it got dark - before I felt alone again. Soon after that I discovered my preference for sunrises - you start off in the dark instead of ending in it.

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."
- The Catcher in the Rye

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Now playing: Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - You Are What You Love