Issue 2 (fall 2k)
In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut quotes the story of a Chinese emperor who seeks from wise men a bit of wisdom that will be true for any circumstance. This is what he's given. And it's true.
I'm beginning to realize just how stringy life really is. If you don't reach out for people, they'll be gone so quickly that you won't have time for regrets. Even small trips and nights spent with friends will seem valuable in retrospect, so sitting at home's become pretty frightening, actually. Though from reading the first issue you may know that all my friends are scattered around the state due to my boarding school situation, I feel like I'm wasting time if I don't run my long distance bill up some more or write a letter or just hang out with some peripheral friend around town. I'm sick of hearing about these next few years being the "best ones of your life." It's depressing.
What if I don't make the most of youth? I don't want to end up friendless in young adulthood, but so many adults tell me how hard it is to make the same kind of friends we have as kids. It sure does seem that way...all you've got as an adult are your old acquantances and co-workers, who may not be all that appealing. Neither of my parents have friends closer than those they made as youths. I'm scared that I won't make enough or close enough friends to keep in touch with. And I don't want to keep in touch.
There's the feeling that "keeping in touch" makes a friendship last after distance is part of the friendship. It's never the same, though. When you can't see the people you care about every day, your relationship becomes relegated to letters of current events and the "love yous" become a formality tacked to the end. So I'm still holding out hope for a closer-again friendship in the future with these people, my friends who've graduated from high school, even though it's not going to happen. But I can't face that.
I was once told that you can never keep the right people around for long enough, but the annoying ones never seem to leave. Boy, is that true. I'm grasping for straws of time to spend with these amazing people whom I love and care about, while fending off instant messages from some jackass a few blocks away. Great people make you conceited. There are just enough worthwhile people in the world to make meeting new ones worth the effort, but I swear that there's so many fucks it's almost not worth the disappointment.
And those times when it is? You know what I'm talking about. We all have someone to need time with, so we could just show how much they mean. And if we could only do that, they'd stay around forever, right? If only. Life is stringy, and nothing sticks.
This, too, shall pass away.