After a very comfortable summer, it's kind of unsettling experiencing stress once more. My father and his complete family is becoming a major source of this stress, and it's aggrevating. My stupid skank stepmom is walking all over my dad more and more every day to the point where he has no soul left. On top of that, both his parents are dying, so I'm probably headed to a funeral within the coming week should they choose to pull the plug. After that, poor old grandfather won't have anything left to live for. It's just bad timing. Normally I wouldn't mind these kinds of things, but it's all happening right as the end-of-last-summer insanity is picking up - the final parties with good friends, a leisurely visit from my brother, the easing-into-college things like camp. Between work and all these things, it's making me scared I'm going to miss something big, some kind of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
I didn't think I'd find myself here, but I'm going to be scared to leave. When I graduated I just thought it'd be a fun-filled summer with the usual folks then off I go, and I'll see them again when I come home. But now it's different. That fun-filled summer became more fun than I expected. Now those usual folks are the closest friends and some of the best ones I could ask for. They say that you're not truly thankful until what you have is gone - but I was thankful to have these friends. I was thankful on nights when I was just surrounded by friends - nights after a lonely Christmas, the enormous gaming parties, the prom, the barbecues of summer. But now the end's in sight - and when I sit here in my office and think about how I could be wasting time playing Halo with everyone else it makes me depressed. But when I'm around the amigos it doesn't become a sob-fest like all those silly fake girls do around graduation time. It's just another night with the amigos. As if the group will always exist and there will always be a summer night to spend doing nothing useful but still just having fun. So I just wanted to say to you guys:
I'm going to miss all of you.
If you're coming along with me to Austin, I'm happy. Maybe you'll change, or I'll change, but it's not like people like us suddenly turn antagonistic or unfriendly. Maybe we won't see each other every night, or every week, for that matter. But at least we're still there. Maybe I'll make an appearance at one of the clubs you're in, or maybe you'll come see me sing, and the amigo-ness will just continue on, where every conversation picks up where it left off before.
If you're not coming with me, then that's where things get unpredictable. There's no doubt we'll all come home and get together on the first Thanksgiving and Christmas. And we'll all be amused with ourselves and each other but we'll all still have good times. But what about the second Christmas, the third? I can only hope the 'net keeps us all together, because even though they say high school friendships break down, we're different. We were all at the head of the class for a reason, and it's not always pure book smarts. It's because we see through things better than others. It's not like the groups of friends who have partying or sports in common can go from playing Nintendo to discussing the finer points of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in a matter of seconds. It's that wisdom, that intangible connection, that permanently binds people. We have the unique potential of staying together since we're all such balanced people. Think of the possibilities - more friends, more networking, maybe someday we'll all interchange our friends and find significant others and become a 100-strong cast of Friends. Our time together is quickly coming to an end, and we've got to do something to fix it.
And if you think I neglect you or don't care about you because I don't IM you, please don't take offense or think you've been ditched. I'm just quiet at heart. 