Of old friends (and self-justification)

... [her] birthday yesterday. Am I such a bad friend for falling asleep that I never bothered going online to greet her? Was I so shallow when I didn't plan to call her because she never greeted me on my birthday? Because I know that she’ll say she has other things to do? That’s just the thing. She just has so much to do. Go ahead and call me bitter or mean. Or a faker, even. She is my best friend, actually. The only one who really understood where I was coming from. It sucks that we don’t talk much these days. I know the deal: there just isn't anything to talk about. I know I shouldn't blame anything on her because she has her own plans, her own issues - all these other endeavors. But… it’s sad not having her around. And I really fucking miss her. I just hope she’s not forgetting about me.

~ from 8/18/11

I never got to write about my long conversation on the phone with Charet last Saturday. I was the caller - mainly picked up the phone to tell her about the good news that has befallen me recently, and in which, I must interject, she played a vital role. We ended up talking about various other things, like our high school "love lives", which both ceased to exist before they even took form. We talked about college, and how it doesn't seem much of a big deal anymore that we never got into the schools that we dreamed of. Now that's something amazing because up until last Saturday, we had been talking about high school. And although we went to different schools then, the conversations were nonchalantly fun.

We're in college now, still in different schools. Yet, talking to her is still a hilarity, like she hasn't changed a bit. I like that about her: the way that she can just carry the conversation from one form to another without wearing out the receiving end, the way her affability remains constant even amidst self-deprecation and loneliness. Perhaps, it's the way that every time we talk about things - even of the most nonsensical of the nostalgia - I know that she'll forever be my friend.

It's a pity that I worry about myself. I'm afraid that if we all meet again, when I return and present myself, I would be a much different person: more serious, more pragmatic, more despicable. And, I know that I have harshly changed from the person that I was five, four, or even two years ago. They say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I am stronger, and, more than anything, I am bitter. I used to carry those changes next to the chip on my shoulder, could hear it along with the John Rzeznik song, "And how could the world want me to change? They're the ones that stay the same". But I am just about comprehending the wrongs of it: I don't want to be the one that had a lot to change. You have no idea how hard it is for me to write this one.