snap a trap

You're right; you're all right. I have to snap out of it.

It's not that big of a deal.

It's going to be okay.

The things that don't end up okay were going to fall apart anyway; they just disintegrated faster than if I hadn't gone away.

Someone said to me today that "being left isn't a feeling." Which is extremely thought-provoking to me because, up until she said that, I had always considered it on par with feeling sad or being elated. As far as I'd always experienced it, it was a feeling of its own, with roots and personality and girth. It certainly felt like a feeling. I remember it as something distinct. Hopefully she's right and I'm simply projecting my insecurities on my friends and my love. There's no reason to believe everyone I care about here makes the exact same or sufficiently similar traumatic connections when a person they are close to departs for a time. She's right about one thing though: I'm not leaving; I'm going away for a while. Right? It's not even that long, in the grand scheme of things. How much changes in three months, she asks. Indubitably. How much indeed?

So I'm getting more excited again; I'm regaining or perhaps sprouting new bits of confidence and luster for my summer in Thailand. It seems like everyone has a connection in Southeast Asia! Which is spectacular for me (and my parents who seem to think it's basically inevitable I'll be kidnapped or assaulted or wind up in a violent political demonstration for which I'll accidentally be arrested and sent to Thai prison) because who doesn't appreciate an ever-expanding circle of people, especially in places like Southeast Asia? I'm doing it. The tickets are bought. A few more 2L exams and I'll be on my way to 3L year via my internship in Thailand. Wow. I'm so lucky!

In other recent news, I reconnected with an old college friend this week, through the miracle of facebook and spurred by pictures he'd posted of his recent (and coincidental) trip to Thailand. It's a relatively new feeling for me, as I've tended, until coming to law school in 2008, to be a rather hermetic and introverted person; rekindling old friendships was about as foreign to me as the glockenspiel. Assuming it's a joyous reunion, I'd recommend it (with some clear caveats). There's something different about your friendships with people who knew you 'before,' whenever you define that term to mean. I can't, in my current state of mind, elaborate very eloquently, but I think it's related to them catching glimpses (or more, depending on the relationship) of you when you were less developed than now. It follows, then, that once you move into a new situation from the one you're currently in, the friends of today will feel like that too. I wonder if at some middle point, then, we start devolving, so that we're actually our most developed during our 40s, or 50s, or even 30s. I suppose depending on what you're speaking of (physical, brain, emotions, memory, etc.) it's variable. Again, I always circle back to that faux-Vonnegut graduation speech; in particular, the part where the author says something along the lines of "youth is wasted on the young." Or maybe it's beauty. Either way, they're both true, aren't they? My main point, though, is that once you've moved on or out of prior situations, the people you knew from then seem to have a deep connection to you, if you happen to reconnect. Which in some ways angers me because it appears that that would mean that those who were familiar with, or close to, us in high school, are even more deeply interwoven in our stories, our fundamental frameworks, than those who come later but are perhaps more meaningful, and there exists no category of humans I'd like farther from me, or to be more dead to me, than the people I knew in high school. I wonder if an exorcism would work for ripping them from my blood vessels and aortas and
amygdala. It's not fair! They gained access before I learned how to put up walls, or even why you would need such things in the first place.

Quiet time is nice sometimes. When it comes, unexpectedly, it can be such a welcome respite. Who even knew you needed a break? But once in a while we can like ourselves enough to just hang. I heard today, in the context of a serious conversation, that it was good I could laugh at myself about this thing, this particular subject matter. I hope I can continue to bring that into my life and others', because sometimes there's just nothing else you can do. Life gets terribly ridiculous every now and then; it's important to nurture and maintain our ability to chuckle at its kinks and pitfalls. Oooh, and when you find one of those people whose laugh naturally incites hysterical and uninhibited laughter in others, around whom you can't not laugh, strive to keep her company.

One from my favorite band ever, a song I'd, regrettably, not heard until today. One more chance, by Bloc Party.