Shadows

Really should be in bed.

Summer is wrapping up for me--sort of--as I prepare for Costa Rica. Which, with some small luck involving airlines and latinamerican busses, I will get to this Thursday.

The first summer after college I guess is bound to be different. I guess my single greatest realization is this: people are people. That means that your special, unique and irreplaceable friends are...well...not so much. There are friends everywhere. And the question becomes wether to try to deepen friendships through time and effort or to make as many friends along the roadside as possible. I realize that this summer has been partly unfulfilling because I have not met new people or made new friends. A lot of my friendships have deepened and strengthened, and I have realized the value of some of the them, particularly my friendship with Robbie. I know I've always used him as somewhat of a yardstick to see how we both had grown and in which directions, but this summer I've felt very close to him--that our shared journey has been infinitely more important than where we've gone, and that however different we are or become, that path has shaped us both.

That's kind of the end of cheesy sentimentality, though. Other friendships have deepened, all changed, and many...sloughed off, fallen away. Through lack of effort, lack of interest, lack of time. Whatever. Their death hurts deeply, but in the end I know that people are people. That there will always be more friends, as long as there are humans in the general vicinity there will be more friends. Which I guess is one of the reasons I'm not scared of Costa Rica. Or or leaving, so much.

What I'd do differently next summer:

Purpose. Not a job, necessarily, but something. Something to do, something to meet new people, something to get out and have a reason and something to take a break from and to have commitments to. I've not been bored, but I've been listless. I've not done things not because of laziness but from sheer inertia. And when I noticed I had maybe a month left and couldn't think of a way to start something. What? Anything? Maybe.

And I'm left with that terrible 2 days left feeling. Where I kind of want to get on the plane right now and kind of want to write everyone I know a long long letter. Where inertia bleeds into urgency. Or something.

There's a cat purring in my bed and it's late and I've been sick and I've got to get up tomorrow. So goodnight. What do you think of the "heartfelt diaries for the readership of the internet at large"-type post from me?