I have been staring at the wall for a couple of minutes now and I can't seem to find or decide on what to write. I feel so many emotions in my heart and I think about a lot of things to make me undecided on a certain topic.It seem queer to finally understand and realize that a friend of yours for years now is really very different from you. And I have made that realization with my true friends.
When we were still in High School, life seemed to be very smooth and worries were nothing at all. Our friendship was as strong as steel and whenever one cries, the others empathize. We didn't have arguments because we were of the same mind. There were no misunderstandings because each one perfectly understands the other. All have the same, if similar likes and dislikes.
But how wrong I was to think that! It takes years, distance, experience, and environment to make you realize that you are completely different from your friends, no matter how true and tested they are.
College has been very fun and I got to know myself better. However, the 4 years that I have spent away from home made me see that I have grown- more maturely and surely more wisely. I am not the very idealistic girl of old whose head was always in the clouds and still believes in magic, fairy tales and knights in shining armor. No, I have controlled my imagination and embraced the more practical side of life. However, I cannot deny that I still am a child within. Somehow a part of me remained in my magical realm which I have since freely moved from both worlds.
However, my friends, specifically May, has no trace of magic at all. She laughs at anything that is fantastical. She has no elaborate imagination and doesn't really appreciate works of art like a painting or a poem or a simple flute or a violin playing. Yes she likes them but isn't really touched.
I, on the other hand, understand the compelling beauty of nature. I answer to the birds' call. I understand the swaying of the leaves on the trees. I sympathize with the sun in its setting and delight with its rising. I can hear the winds' music and sing in it's tune. Like Suzanne in my favorite book, I can say of the world: "They're so beautiful. They're so beautiful that it hurts." But I guess being exposed to literature and the arts really connects you to that other world I have always known. Thus, the years at college have taught me a great deal about myself.
Going to school in a different place from my friends equipped me with the tools for socialization. Being deprived of my friends' company, I begun to hunt for others that could take my mind off them and in a way, help me adjust to my new environment.
Separated by a vast ocean and numerous mountains, I have acquired other characteristics from the people that I have newly met and made friends. It was a new feeling for me and I liked the diversity and adventure. I have learned to adopt in an entirely different environment where I came from. The friends that I have met made me more flexible and open-minded.
I cannot really give a specific answer as to why I seem to feel distant or detached to my friends lately. Yes, I still know all their activities and whats been going on but I feel as though I am merely a spectator; watching and listening to all of these from a distance and not "really" involved. I know for a fact that this happened because I grew up. But perhaps I am not the only one to be blamed. My friends grew up too. We all grew up at the same time but at different places, going through different experiences, feeling different emotions, succeeding in different achievements and learning the meaning of life separately.
My friends and I are in no way quarreling now. We are still as thick as ever. Its only that we've changed. We were not the same naive girls we were back in High School. We have become women. We have abandoned our former worlds and is now living in a new one. And someday, we will leave this world to a much more grown-up, protected and highly experienced one. Perhaps that would be a year or a couple of years from now. But I know I will leave this present world of mine slowly but unconsciously. The next thing I will realize, I have been living in that world for quite some time already.
The future is uncertain to me. I cannot see the path clearly yet. There will be mountains to climb, streams to ford and a whole lot of fog to obscure my way. However, I am certain of this one thing- that I will write my adventure, no matter how big or small or shallow they are so that I will learn from my past and can always reminisce my adventures in life. Now, wouldn't that be nice?
