We threw our shoes into the ocean

I'm trying to be witty and nice and okay, and I guess I am. It doesn't really bother me much anymore, only when I let it, or when I want it to. I've been trying not to let it bother me that I have to double take when I see your name, because I don't recognize you anymore. I've been trying to let it be okay that it doesn't really bother me to talk to you anymore. Nothing's been put "into perspective" but I am reminded of how much things have changed, of how much I pretended, or still pretend.

So, let's talk about something else for a bit. I learned today that one of my classmates from my year in high school is going to be teaching freshman english at my old high school! It's super odd. She's my age, and here she is with a real job, a real job you associate with older people until you realize that when you were that age, when you were 14 or 15, people my age WERE 'older', they were that age where they could be doing this sort of thing. They were young, impressionable, freshly married, with brand new liberal arts degrees and they thought it could be enough.

I guess that's one of the most beautiful lies we can tell ourselves, that it will be enough, that it will be okay.

If it doesn't hurt anymore, then it's okay, right?

There's that mental equivalent of picking at it, how your mom told you not to do that, or you'd leave a scar. I guess she was right.

Maybe I realized that tearing myself up about it didn't accomplish anything, and that no matter how much I thought about you, you still lived your own life, you still followed your own heart, and you still were your own person. I knew I couldn't change that then, and I know it now. I especially know it now. I guess all I can manage to do for my own dumb self is be okay, really okay, and mean it. I can be there for you and I really am happy you're happy, really and truly, and I mean it with all my heart, even things you know I'm lying about, at least I lied and that means I tried.

I never drank as easily as when it was because of you. That was only once but I still remember it, no matter how hard I tried not to.

In the end though, here's what I'm trying to say. I'm okay, I really am. I'm over it, as much as someone can be under the circumstances. I still love you dearly as one of my friends, as someone who knows me better than almost anyone else. I know I haven't been there for you as often as I could be, but I hope that you will be there for me.

I hope that my dear friends know how much I love them, and that I mean it like I did all those years ago with you, and you alone remember what I meant in those years, when I couldn't say it, couldn't admit it out loud unless I truly meant it. I say it out loud a lot more now, but I admit it exactly as often as I used to.

All I need is a distraction, the first person to make me forget will be the last person I remember.