Introspection

Hey all,

Whatever happened to friends and friendship? It seems as the years tick off the calendar, more and more of the people I was close to seem farther away. I remember going to parties and cookouts, festivities and events full of people, friends and friends of friends. Now I find myself kind of on the precipice if a new time, where my friends and family have wandered off and created new lives.


Sitting here on July 4th, a time for family and friends, for cookouts and cheap beer, and I am by myself doing laundry. I am not depressed or anything about it, just contemplative. I don't think I really want to hang out with those people or have those same experiences, I think I just want to find out when everything changed. What do i really want out of a holiday. Is it a family and parties, or the quiet contemplation that I enjoy in an otherwise overwhelming week. I think maybe a bot of both.

It just seems funny that people you were once close to come and go as the years play out. I know I was never the most popular guy in the world, my circle of friends was small but fierce. Still within that circle were a lot of people that I considered close friends, and there friends by association where mine. I remember one July 4th party that there must have been 25 people at. Now I go a year or more without seeing or hearing from these people. Part of me doesn't care, another part of me regrets that I don't.

I suppose the bottom line is that there is some residual loneliness of being alone on holidays with me. I know that the means to fix these feelings reside in myself, yet I do nothing about it. Talking and talking trying to reason out things, but not really succeeding gets frustrating. I suppose I always took comfort in the friends I have and the thought that I always will. It's just now that I realize that maybe I am a bit more depressed than I thought. That or writing about it has stirred the pot more than I thought it would.

Anyway I guess over the years the people who are close to you will either grow closer, or go farther away. That is an immutable part of life. I guess the best we can do in the meantime is hope that the choice we have made and the friends we have are the ones who will last. I feel pretty good about mine. Maybe one day I'll have one more to share these thoughts with. I'll just have to be patient.

Enjoy your Fourth of July all and I'll be back tomorrow with new Flash Fiction. Oh, and thanks for listening to me rant.

End of Line.
Gerrad!