There is a certain, uncommon delight that comes only from surprising the people who think they know you.

There is an even rarer delight that comes only from surprising yourself.

People come, people go, sometimes without goodbye, sometimes without hello

At the end of high school, I was mostly ecstatic to be leaving. The vast majority of my graduating class was disposable, in my mind. I had a couple groups of friends, and the highest intentions of staying close with them only.

Luckily for me, I didn't follow through. I realized that some people who I had expected to forget were worth a closer look, and they realized the same about me. I gained some close friends in the moment our geographical distance increased - the moment we gained a glimpse the real world, and needed someone to help us through.

A glimpse is all it was, though. We left the sheltered protection of our homes for the slightly less sheltered protection of college. Throughout my last semester, I tried to force myself to accept that once again, many of my relationships were geographic: we were friends out of convenience, and graduating/me moving to London would separate the people I am friends with, from the people I hung out with, and I'd have to let the latter group go.

I hate this. I hate pretending something is true because I think it will make things easier to bear. Sometimes I have to do this because if you pretend something long enough, you begin to forget that it isn't real, and as Kerouac said, "the glory of children forever is that they have not begun to perceive that adult human strength depends mostly on forgetfulness."

I don't want to believe that. I don't want to pretend that I can't be friends with people because we never had the time to get to know each other at school, or because we only ever hung out and never really talked. I really believe that you do what you can with people with the time that you have with them, because no relationship lasts forever and sooner or later your time is up. It might not happen at the same time for both parties, and it may be hard to realize, but once your time has passed, it's gone. I'm just trying to be happy that I've been given this time with these lovely folks and make the best of it.

I hate it when I realize that I care what someone thinks about me.

Tonight and last night I talked to a whole slew of people, mostly school people. Some were tight friends and some I only know past the acquaintance stage but it was cool and everything. With all of them, it is either established that we are friends so it is easy to be myself with them, or I don't care juuuuust enough to be myself. It's not that I don't care about the person at all. It's just that when I'm not overly concerned with what someone thinks of me - which is technically most of the time, but not enough of the time for me to feel confident in saying that it is usually - I don't think too much about what I'm saying or how I'm acting, and am just myself without trying to be anything.

But when I realize that I want someone to respect/like/trust me, I get flustered. I get shy and I retreat when I shouldn't. I have to try to act like myself, and that never begets proper results or favorable impressions.

Oh, to be impervious from myself!

WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM ME??

...no but really, I don't understand. What do you want me to be in relation to you? I don't like having to guess.

I have choices to make about so many of the people who are in my life, whose orbits overlap mine. I am lucky enough to have several people who don't put me in that position: we are friends, and we need only to keep up what we are doing to preserve that friendship. But then there is everyone else.

Who do I want to keep? Who do I want to let go? Who do I want to earn? And how do I earn them - "And should I then presume? And how should I begin?"

I am conscious, lately, of a few things:

1) I am extremely lucky in my relationships.

2) I will probably not continue to be this lucky. It's too much.

3) I don't deserve any of this.

I don't think I can have what I want, and I don't think what I want exists, and I don't think I know what I want.

I don't know how to do any of this.

I always forget that I am particularly empathetic and sympathetic towards people who have just broken up with their significant other / people whose significant other has just broken up with them. Until I start talking to someone who is experiencing this.

Next thing ya know, I'm on the phone in the middle of a concert reassuring someone that it's okay to cry still, I'm stuck in the middle of friends who are ex's, and I'm buying drinks for newly single friends who aren't out of the mourning period yet. I just feel so awful for them, even without really knowing any details.

I don't understand why trying to be supportive of / a good friend to these people is so important to me. Especially when the ways I attempt to show it are so trivial, so poor, so thin. Meh.

At times like these I suspect I'm a foul weather friend, and that concerns me greatly.

Hope is a bitch.

If you have no expectations, you can't be disappointed: you can only be pleasantly surprised.

I keep telling myself this. I keep trying to be rational.

BUT HOPE SNEAKS IN AND RUINS EVERYTHING.

I can't help it. And I can only keep lying to myself about it for so long.

It's a funny thing, missing people you have no right to miss.