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I’m moving in three weeks.
While I’m ecstatic and anxious and flustered in all the best possible ways, I’ll admit that some things are getting me down. A few months ago - okay, okay, over a year ago - I became extremely fixated on the thought of going to school. I started to get really serious about planning and exploring my options, working all week, getting art and family stuff done on the weekends; I honestly stopped putting an effort into my social life. Granted, the group of friends I hungout with all the time wasn’t really my group of friends anymore - too much blank space had filled the timeline since the last time we all got together and I felt like an outsider more than anything - but I shouldn’t have let it die. The fact of the matter is, I was hiding behind my internet social life. I used it as an excuse not to get out and make any real attempts to see people. “I can just shoot him/her a message; it’ll be fine.” It’s not fine. It’s not fine to stop giving a bit of your time to the people you love and care about; and that’s exactly what I did. It’s not that I stopped loving and caring about them, either. It was just that I assumed they’d always be there, even if I blipped off the radar for a good chunk of time. Hell, I still think about those kids and sigh one of those nostalgic breaths and think, “Man, what I’d give to see them again…” knowing full well that things would be 100% different if I did.
This whole thing bit me in the ass the other day, and now I’m almost certain I’ve lost a great friend. Because of the choices I made in the past, I really don’t have very many chums to say goodbye to now that it’s finally time to SAY goodbye. It stings, but it’s deserved.
I’m not going to let this happen again. I don’t want to let any more plans fall through and I don’t want to lose any more of the people I care about. I’m going to make the very best effort to see some of those folks before I move, and I hope to goodness they accept my most sincere apologies for being off the radar for so long. I guess this is more of a ranty-type post - a little insider into who I am (or have been) in “the real world.” Something you can take from this, though, is that you shouldn’t spend your time moping and crying if you make a mistake. You’re gonna’ do it. You’ll lose people. You’ll feel lame. You’ll regret some things. No matter what, though, you need to learn what you can from them. Will it suck to lose a friend because you were a reclusive flake? Yeah - yeah it will. You might even be tempted to blame it on them, say they’re the ones who abandoned YOU. Though, until you can admit that you’re at fault and learn not to make the same mistake again, you’ll never really move forward.
