So here I am, finally willing myself to write a blog only to find that Jon has beaten me to it! And there's no way I can top his blog. God dammit!
That aside, winter break is finally here. Okay, fine. Call it Christmas break. That's what it is: a break for Christmas. Schools have to call it winter break to avoid excluding those non-Christmas-celebrating people. But still, the break is for Christmas. It's not Hanukkah break. It's not Ramadan break. It's a break for Christians. At any rate, I'm finally on a break. As I sit at home trying to enjoy a book or knitting something I'll never finish, let alone wear, sometimes I wonder what else to do. Nothing, I think, and I continue knitting or reading. It usually doesn't occur to me to be with other people. Then I realize that most people are with friends and use this break from school to hang out with others.
And then there's me, sitting at home with my books, glasses, and fuzzy socks. I'm content at home, although I may be a little bored from time to time. But sometimes I wonder why I'm so different and not with friends. Maybe it's growing up in McCleary that has moved me away from being social. Maybe it's my dislike of socializing. Maybe both. Maybe that's why I really don't have many friends. I made friends in elementary school and a few in middle school and then lost them all when I went to high school. And I made friends in high school and lost most of them when I went to college. And I'm making friends now, but nobody who I hang out with or can really talk to. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can be considered a loner, but why me? What makes me so different? In Bellingham, there's plenty of people to hang out with and public transportation to get me around. Yet I hang out alone in the library, a practice room, or my apartment, usually alone. And I'm content. I don't think, "dang, I sure wish I had a friend." I only wish I was with Jon, 'cause I always wish I'm with him when I'm not. But being with other friends rarely crosses my mind, and that's normal to me. But then I realize that my normal isn't normal to everybody else's normal. But I don't want to be normal like everybody else.
Yet, as I look at all the pictures my friends post on facebook of their high school and college adventures, I feel like I'm missing something. Nobody's around to take pictures of me (don't you even think about it, Jon), and my only social activities include going to club meetings. And I put myself in those clubs; it's not like I was invited. And it's times like these that I feel invisible and thank Allah for the one person who I feel can see me: Jon. I feel as though I gush about him a lot, and I probably do. And that's fine with me. :)
On rare occasions when I think about my friend predicament, I become afraid that if I mean little to my peers then I'll mean nothing to my future students. What exactly is it about me that turns people away from me? How can I make myself appealing to my future students who actually matter? Maybe I'll mean something them because they'll mean something to me. Part of my problem in the first place is that I've been slapped in the face by so many people with whom I've wanted to be friends that I really don't care if I'm friends with them or if we were once friends and then became distant. I just don't care. Sometimes I stop and think, "well that's a shame," but I move on. I've learned to do that: forget. I like to picture myself as standing transparent as people I once loved walk through me. Neither of us look back at the other.
Maybe now I sound like I'm crying to this blog and those few people who read it. I don't want it to be like that. It's not a cry for help. I'm just spilling my thoughts on the Internet for others to read. I'm that nice. :D
--Elie
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