Absence of Gray

The final two months and the countdown to September 1 begins. I am torn between knowing what's better: the changes that have taken place these past few months or the strand of continuity. In my mental ramblings, I return over and over to the anatomy of friendship. What attracts us to the people we befriend? What perpetuates it? What circumstances blend together to create something "of the moment" and distinguishes it from something everlasting? Is the latter even possible? Has technology helped us keep in touch or helped in not keeping touch?

Outside my window, the distant but steady stream of traffic keeps me company at 2 in the morning, any semblance of a schedule has been thrown into disrepair, as it always does when I'm out of the workshop schedule. The possibility of working in an office, of writing and editing, of interacting with other people, of remaining--still--in this new industry, appeals to me.

"Fiery little cookie", has been a friend and fellow writer's personal assessment of me and it brings me back to the anatomies of friendship strand again. I did not plan for this. Perhaps I hoped for it, in some distant part of my consciousness that recognizes the importance of people in one's life. What I did not expect perhaps, is the perceived "weak" bond that seems to perpetuate, that will lead me to board a train, plan a trip, see a friend before I leave, hope we will keep in touch and know that perhaps by some miracle, we shall see each other again. I hope so.

It hasn't been easy, though: it has taken nine months or at the very least, four-five months of close contact to get at me, and even then, I withhold. You see, I still think it's about putting everything into a friendship: to love and to love completely. To be in it 100%. In this, it seems, there are only two shades: black and white. I have been told, to get to know me, one has to "pick at it", perhaps with a pickax, and hope to have scratched away the surface.

I have been advised to not spend too much time indoors, to keep myself on my feet, to walk into town, to be among other people, to not sink into a cloud of work from which it will be quite impossible to surface. To come up for air. To breathe. One thing has been fairly gauged: I can get lost in my room sometimes. This 8x4 that resembles a prison cell sometimes, if one thinks about it long enough and I try not to.

I was thinking about writing a post trying to pick apart and understand the anatomy of friendship but perhaps I'll leave it to my projects instead. Figure it out through narratives and stories, try to understand human nature. I'm only 26, I reason. I have the rest of my life to figure everything out.

Meanwhile there is a commitment to honor, and honor it I will. More than anything else--the experience, the writing, the workshop sessions--it is the relationships that will endure. It is in moments like these that I question my resolve to do this for another two, three or possibly four more years.

And then I remember the rush of being surrounded by others like me, and the possibility of building the life I have wanted for so very long. This determination, this single-mindedness, this absolute desire to get what I want...where does this come from? But I'm too tired to psychoanalyze myself. Maybe I can cover that, too...