"So alive with wild hope..."

I think it's hilarious when you hear a song that was the "our song" in an old relationship you had. I just heard "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" (the Mark Chestnutt version)& I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit bc a few years back, hearing that song woulda had me in a crying mess over my first love. It took me a nice chunk of time to fully get over him. It would be pretty rare if anyone had that effect on me now. My heart's a lot stronger and selective now. But I think it's amusing how when someone is in a state of heartache caused by loss, it seems as if the pain won't ever fade. But it does. Sometimes it just takes a while.

What's exhaustive about life- or at least my life- is that things really do fade, even the strongest memories; it doesn't matter how hard you try to hold on. Often I find that things and people fade in fragments- and then they just slip right out of your hands...right out of your life.

Due to what I'm guessing is a very weak reason, I have not spoken to my "best friend" in about half a year. It's nothing that could not have been resolved in one long sit-down conversation. Due to an extreme lack of effort on both of our parts, what I thought was the friendship that redefined what I thought about the institution of friendship itself has now dissolved into nothing. The saddest part about it is that I do not have the will to rebuild. When it comes to relationships, I am emotionally exhausted & I am prone to just letting things fade now. It's "crazy faith" and "wild hope" that allow me to believe in a lot of people now.

Sure- there are definitely times when I miss her to death. There have been times when I've needed her wisdom, her reason, her sense of humor. There are times when I wonder what she's up to these days; is she planning a wedding with her boyfriend of 3 years? But she's not there...and neither am I. Lilly says that's extremely sad- but I think that you can only do so much before you decide to just do nothing & then just observe what happens. To my dismay, nothing happened. The way I see it, sometimes you just have to crash & burn. Not everything is worth the fight. As my sister-in-law Nicki says: "You have to pick your battles."

I think I'm cursed by the phrase "best friend." Every time I tag it onto a person, the relationship just always seems to self-destruct. So I kinda refuse to use that phrase seriously now. And I find that I have countless acquaintances, but very few actual friends. So people that I call my friends are really it for me.

I've changed a whole lot from when she and I became "best friends"& she would never know it. But sometimes, when you're weighed down by things that probably need to fade, you are only left starving for change. Who knows, maybe it wasn't supposed to fade; but I think it would've been repaired by now if it was. At least I can say that I walked away from that with only good memories locked in my heart.

There are people that I've been glad to see get the hell out of my life. I think it's important to choose wisely who you surround yourself with. As a guy I used to date (who I heard is pretty gay these days) would say: "We are here to choose, not to be chosen." And if it's up to me, I am going to surround myself with people that are as far away as possible from being temporary. The whole transient thing just won't cut it anymore.

QOTD (lyrics from a David Gray song for today.)
"Take this silver lining- keep it in your own sweet head.
Shine it when the night is burning red.
Shine it in the twilight, shine it on the cold, cold ground.
Shine it till these walls come tumbling down...
Step into the silence- take it in your own two hands.
And scatter it like diamonds all across these lands.
Blaze it in the morning- wear it like an iron skin.
Only things worth living for- innocence and magic, amen."
**"Silver Lining" written by David Gray from the album White Ladder**