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Friday, September 27, 2002 @ 11:50 AM
(Excerpts From Blue Notebook. Written Very Late Tuesday Night/Very Early Wednesday Morning. Things in parentheses were added tonight as I was typing it up.)
I don't think I can explain how wonderful tonight has been, I don't think there are words. All I know is that I feel closer to Dan and Seth than I did ten hours ago. And I feel like I have a lot to think about now. I feel really grateful for their input... really grateful that we got to really talk, and really listen to each other.
(I won't talk about the insights that we had regarding Dan or Seth, not because they weren't just as important as stuff about me, but because it would be so totally wrong. If either of them wanted to talk about anything personal, they could, but it's so clearly not my place to do so.)
A few of the things that were said were not easy to hear. Honestly, it really hurts me to know that some of my old friends feel I'm trying to preserve my life the way it's always been. This is something I've been hearing a lot from a lot of different directions. "You're in college now, you need to move on/cut the cord/et cetera." This is so complicated I can only barely begin to discuss it. And it's only one of many things that is incredibly complicated and difficult to deal with right now.
Everyone seems to believe that "high school only exists in the photos on your wall at college." And in some ways, this goes without saying. You can't stay in high school forever - and why the hell would you want to? When something's over, it's over. Duh squared. I don't feel like I'm trying to stay in high school, or refusing to move on with my life. At the same time, I don't see why I should just forget about and/or abandon the relationships that are important to me. I have the opportunity to continue to share myself with people and I don't see why I shouldn't exploit it. (Plus, they're going to pay me $50 for judging speech meets. How f'n cool is that?)
My way of looking at the whole... "Can you keep high school friendships after high school is over?" question is this: It's like a test. If the friendship is worth sustaining for both parties, then it will survive distance. Of course, the only example of this phenomenon I have right now is Josh Weckesser. So far. But I fully anticipate there being others, and I really hope I'm not wrong to do so.
I think losing or keeping people is always a choice. (Of course, it's not only my choice. Most of you reading this have a choice, too. But I guess what I wish I could say is just that) I'm choosing not to fade out of people's lives, because A.) it's happened to me a bunch of times and I've always hated it, B.) despite all the superficial alliances that high school offers, I managed to create friendships that I know are real and worth sustaining, and C.) because I suck at this social thing. A lot. I'm not the kind of person who appeals to a massive population. People who aren't annoyed by me are few and far between. (And I love and appreciate those few much more because of your rarity.)
And even if I'm not outright annoying ("painful to look at... or talk to" -Sophistry) I'm *so* not good at socialness. I can initiate contact with people, but they forget me easilly. Which is useful when doing crime, but makes it very hard to avoid lasting loneliness. And I have a hard time going from the initial phase, the talking to someone in class, into being able to impose myself on them by calling them at home or inviting them to hang out with me. I guess "imposing" is a bad way to look at it... but I tend to assume that I need people a lot more than they need me. I guess maybe the first step would be to stop thinking that way. People need friends just as much as I do. Other people are just as lonely. Probably moreso, as most of them are probably far from home.
I can't help feeling really insecure, though. (Partially because every time I see people who I met through or with Dan, they say, "Oh, hey... Where's Dan?" Tonight, at the Homecoming football game, was no exception. I must have heard "Where's Dan?" and "Is Dan here?" half a dozen times. And partially just because... if I were loved, people would want me at the dance tomorrow night. Part of me thinks it might be a really bad sign that Seth was invited, and I wasn't. Seth went to West. Seth has only been our friend for about two months. It's not that I care so much about not getting to go to Homecoming, it's that I keep trying to figure out if it's supposed to mean something. I can accept that I'm not as super-cool as Seth and Dan, but I am really, really worried that people just... tolerate me. That I'm not loved, I'm just put up with.)
It's ridiculous to feel this way, but you know, there's this demon that feeds on self-esteem, and I think sometimes mine is like, it's especially favorite snack.
(::takes a deep breath::)
I know that I'm going to make new friends. I'm already on my way. Playing phone tag with Kristy and Jeff, hanging out with Amanda, Sarah, Heather, Kim, activist-izing with Maggie, Molly, and Megan, and talking with R.J... it's just going to take me longer to feel like I really have friends. Some people are satisfied with superficial friends, who they hang out with and have a good time, but no real connection with. And I'm not. I need to stay connected to the people who are important to me, even if it's just with a letter, an occasional visit, or a phone call now and then. I just don't want to leave people behind just because that's what I'm expected to do. I don't want to become the unreliable college student, I want to hold myself to a higher standard than that. So if people think this is an attempt to try to hang onto my old life... I probably can't convince them otherwise. I really don't buy into the whole, "I'm at college now, so I need to re-invent myself totally and abandon my old friends." I like who I am. I'm not resisting having new experiences, or changing, but I'm not ready to say that everything I felt for the past four years doesn't matter anymore, either. Unless... that's what people want. In which case... maybe you should tell me so.
(And I know I'm going to have new experiences, experiences I couldn't have had or didn't have in high school. Right now the only new experiences are nearly walking in on people having sex in my room and knowing that an anonymous lesbian is infatuated with me (Dan won't tell me who it is, but that's all right.)... I'm sure I'd feel differently if I hadn't had so much freedom during my time at a rather progressive high school. But this drinking, drugging, procrastinating, being relatively unchallenged and yet buried with busywork, not knowing what I want to do with my life, being constantly surrounded by shallow people, constant-rejection thing... it's all just more of the same. It's not really good or bad, it's my life. It's what I'm used to. So instead of being all excited about the bright shiny newness of college life, I'm just kinda... looking for the bright shiny newness within me... and planning the best possible way to pass the time for the next four years. Maybe this is the wrong way to approach things. Maybe someone should offer me some suggestions. Something other than "cut the cord" because A.) I don't want to and B.) I don't know how.)
Everything is incredibly screwed up and crazy right now. Everything is confusing, and when I think about everything I don't have the answer to, I get overwhelmed and start to feel really down. The only way I know how to deal with all of this is just... one thing at a time. Concentrate on my upcoming history test. Concentrate on what I'm going to do Saturday (Visit Josh in Dekalb! Huzzah!). Just... count on things to resolve themselves, to some extent. The people who care will be there for me, and the people who don't will abandon me. There's nothing genuinely new about that. My problems tend to look small when I remember that loneliness is nothing new, and certainly not the end of the world. (And I guess... I can invite people to just be brutally honest with me. Because I'd rather be told that I'm being annoying or stupid than have to infer it from actions and awkward silences. Or hear it through other people. I can ask people to not play games with me, because, for serious, I don't have as much patience for that kind of thing as I used to.) And when everything gets to be too much, I can either sing Obla-di, obla-da, life goes on... BLAH! Na-na-na-na, Life goes on..., or I can say, "Stop... Breathe." The trick is to keep breathing. (After all, as The Slayer says, the hardest thing in this world is just to live in it.)
Speaking of the world... it seems to be waking up at this very moment. The sun is coming up, and it's very pretty. My brother seems to have woken up on his own, I can hear the shower running in the basement. I have class at 9:00 - Oh God. It probably wasn't terribly smart to stay up more than 24 hours in a row, and then expect myself to continue functioning. But I could not have traded tonight for something as trivial as rest. Nights like this one are rare and special. There should be more of them, but there aren't. We spend too much time entertaining and performing, instead of being honest with ourselves and the people we love. (And just generally being Drama Queens. Okay, maybe that's just me.)
I don't think I could explain why tonight was so amazing. But I know that one of the bestest things was that I didn't - and couldn't have - planned it.
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