Old Friends

I've had opportunities to spend time with a lot of old friends lately due to both sad happenings and happy ones, and I felt the need to document my gratefulness (I don't really know how else to describe the feeling...it's positive, yet quietly melancholy to me...so goth, I know).

Getting together with people who knew me back in the olden days (when I was both more and less of a loser) always makes me feel like I matter and have an identity beyond just my own sick, sad thoughts about who I must be. It's comforting. Yet, the future keeps always moving and pulling (pushing?) us in different directions, and I get a little wistful for the days when we did see each other constantly with our big dreams intact and our endless possibilities still ahead of us. Doors close now every day (but other doors open, of course, as is the old adage), and I have to sort of mourn each tiny slam just a little. At least for me, every slam shuts out one more bit of potential greatness and, I'm afraid, locks in an ordinary existence. So love and loss mingle when I relive the past and I feel both at home and lost in the forest (the forest of open and closed doors? Yeah, how's that for mixing metaphors?).

And with all that gothness above, I'm going to go start a poetry journal. :-) (But seriously, I do really take to heart reconnections with old friends -- it means a lot to me, and I hope we can always be part of each others' lives).

Oh, the angst!

I'm having a sort of feeling down kind of day, but not a feeling sorry for myself kind of day; it's more raging against the proverbial machine than against myself, which I suppose is healthier. Self-loathing is not really useful, and it's not really honest either. I don't actually loathe myself in any way. (I do strongly dislike the fact that I don't understand how to dress myself properly or wear makeup or be a girl, but those are just small embarrassments, not life-threatening problems).

So anyway -- I felt the need to record some thoughts because of my gloomy day. Work is particularly tedious right now, though I won't get into specifics. You can ask if you really care to know, but I can promise that you'll really be sorry you did because I will talk at length and even bring props to illustrate my complaints. :-) Okay, just one specific complaint: fire alarm testing day is not my favorite day (and, actually, they've been testing the fire alarms every few weeks since the summer)!

I've just been sighing a lot today and sending emails with that little "top priority" exclamation point selected. Just feeling a little neglected and melancholy is all.

*One last random note before I go collate some more documents (wait, don't they have photocopiers that do that?!): in standing at my office window collating documents, I saw two hilarious things in the space of about 1 minute (it's market day, so that must lend to the interestingness on the street)... 1. a fat cowboy wearing a parka walked sassily by in black platform boots that HAD to be women's! 2. a shiny van for some business that I can't even remember the name of 4 minutes later pulled up to the light; it had a small picture of a very realistic cow on the side with the slogan "our business depends on udders." It made me giggle, but I couldn't grab my phone fast enough to shoot a picture.

*Sigh* The fire alarm is going off again for about the 14th time today, and my nerves are shot.