Ever-Changing Friendships

It's Christmas Eve, & I wax nostalgic...

The Holiday Season really flew by for me this year...  I've been busy w/work, dancing, computer-viri, being exhausted...  I guess it hasn't been a total loss...I haven't been completely superficial about Christmas, I've put a little though into it's true meaning, I got all my shopping done, I got some great Christmas-dances in...

But the thing that's really been occupying my thoughts this season is friends.  Friends are an interesting thing...  They say that "Friends come and go, but family is forever", which I guess is true in a lot of ways.  But on the other hand, I would say that "Family is family regardless---but you choose your friends."  My family are good people, it's hard to picture my life without them, & they're far from the last people I'd choose to associate with...but they're far from first, too.  You might say that friends are the people we choose to be family.

But more than the fact that you choose your friends is that they choose you.  We all know people that we think are really cool or really fun, and maybe they "like" us, but they just don't seem to esteem us as highly as we do them (which isn't anything personal).  But every now & then, we meet someone that seems to think that we're as awesome as we think they are.

That concept is so wonderful to me...  Your family kind of has to love you.  Sure, some people's families don't, but there really is an obligation to love your family.  And sure, we all have an obligation to "love our fellow man", but that's not quite the same as the deep, personal love of friendship.  Friends are people who love you when they don't have to.  That's really something special.

At any rate, I've been thinking a lot about my friends...more specifically, about people who "used to be my friends", you might say...  I've never had a "falling out" with anyone, but sometimes people just grow apart...people get busy, move on with life, move away...  And then one day you realize that your friendship isn't the same.  Not like they're simply "someone I used to know", & certainly not like they're "not my friend any more", but more like they're "a friend I used to know".

How sad...  I know change is inevitable, & I know that sometimes change is good.  But sometimes...sometimes change really sucks.  I don't want to lose any more friends...I don't want anyone else to drift away...  My friends mean so much to me, & I miss my "old friends" so much...friends from High School, that I've hardly seen since then...friends from the Weber State Swing Club, who I've hardly seen since they left...friends from the Weber State Dance Team, who I've hardly seen since I left...friends from the U of Utah Swing Club, the Golden Skillet, & the Murray Arts Centre, who haven't come in ages...

I don't want anyone else to become "a friend I used to know".  Life is about people.  I hate it when people leave...I hate missing people that matter to me...because when they're gone, a part of me is missing...

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art...It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."

So Very Tired...

I'm so tired...so tired of being tired...  Mentally & emotionally tired, of course...but it's even harder to deal with those when you're always physically tired as well...

I can never get to sleep easily...  If I'm absolutetly exhausted, I can get to sleep in maybe half an hour, but most nights, it takes at least an hour, sometimes two...  My mind just won't stop working!  I can never stop thinking!  And if I try not to think, I get bored, & then I'm preoccupied w/being bored...or I get preoccupied w/trying not think...  If nothing else, my mind just catches onto whatever random thought strays by...the last thing I was thinking of, a song stuck in my head, something that happened that day, something coming up the next day...  Pure sleepiness eventually wins over, but not quickly enough...

And even worse is trying to wake up...I've never been a morning person...even if I get to bed before midnight, I can sleep in 'til 9:00 w/out even trying.  But it's gotten worse...this past summer I spent most mornings sleeping in 'til 10:00...and lately when I don't have to be anywhere, I can sleep in 'til 11:00...or later...  I'm just so incredibly, unbelievably groggy...my mind just feels like mush...  I consider getting up, & I just think "Ughhh..." & fall right back to sleep like that...

But the worst part of all is how the rest of me feels...regardless of how little I wore myself out the night before, regardless of how early I went to bed, in the morning I feel completely & totally drained of energy...  My whole body, especially my limbs, especially my legs, feels heavy & tight...often to the point of lightly aching...  Every night I go to bed feeling tired (as I should), but then every morning I wake up feeling exhausted...

On one episode of the TV show M*A*S*H, a reporter from the States was asking all the main characters questions about the war, their work, etc.  When asked what they hoped to do when the war ended, the character Hawkeye said "I'd like to take six to eight months, and become unconscious...not do anything, not go any place, not have anything asked of me...just sleep...  And then I'd like to go to Europe, and sleep there for a year."

Oh, how I echo his sentiment...  Sometimes I just want to sleep...and sleep...and sleep...and sleep until I just can't sleep anymore...  I wonder what that feels like...to be so rested that you actually want to get out of bed?  I have no idea, because I never sleep well...I would kill for a good-night's sleep...  And such exhaustion robs me of the day's morale right from the get-go...I have so little motivation to do what needs doing each day...

I'm always tired, I've had a cold for 2 1/2 months, & I have lots of other little medical oddities going on, too...  I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so we'll se how it goes.  I just hope he can find something wrong with me that has a definite solution.  Because I can't function like this...

So very tired...

"Even thus last night, and two nights more I lay,
 And could not win thee, Sleep, by any stealth:
 So do not let me wear to-night away.
 Without thee what is all the morning's wealth?
 Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
 Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!"