Sunday June 22, 2003

My post-college friendship-deprived life

Surviving college is one of the accomplishments that I'm most proud of, especially since my undergraduate years brought me a countless number of non-academic struggles in addition to my study stress. Life, in spite of the blessings it brought me, was hard. I got myself trapped inside a long depression where I harmed myself in so many ways. Two people I love died within eight weeks of each other. And several times I survived civil war blazing in my own home. To say that I'm glad it's over doesn't even begin to describe the relief I feel from getting a chance to start a new chapter in my life.

I love starting new things; new jobs, new relationships, new paintings, new everything. New things give me the chance to get out of an old rut, change an old habit, or shed an old skin (no not literally, dorks). And I don't feel any different about starting this new period of my life, except for the fact that I'm leaving behind not just the bad old things, but the good old things too. Like friends.

At school, I met a lot of people. Some I liked, and we became hallway friends, chitchatting in between classes and while standing in line at the Lang dining hall. Others I didn't like so much, and sometimes complained about them to my hallway friends when they annoyed or angered me. Yeah I wasn't always the nicest person. I'm working on it. But there were other people I met who slowly turned from strangers to family all during my short stay at Baldwin-Wallace College. And last month I moved home from school, started the newest phase of my life, and found myself without the people who meant the world to me the last couple of years. And now I miss them.

E-mail and AIM are wonderful tools that have helped me keep in touch with all those people I no longer see on a daily basis. The phone has been pretty great, too. Thank God for Alexander Graham Bell. But even with all these cool communication tools, I still feel like some of my friends are light years away, even if they're only across town. I don't see them everyday anymore, and now I feel the kind of withdrawal that drive crack fiends crazy. I just... miss my friends. This new, wonderful, fantabulous chapter in my life may be a great beginning, but it's just not as great as it could be. This chapter would read so much better if those members of my friendship family were around to help me write it.

Miss you guys.