The grind

I got a couple of wake up calls over the last few days. I guess this happens to everyone at some point: you lose people you're close with, you suddenly realize your loved ones won't be there forever, maybe you just barely escape with your own life. Life has been trying to teach me these things before, but only now it's really hit me.

Reflecting upon these recent events made me understand, among other things, that I'd completely wasted the summer. We talked about stuff we should do in the summer, and we did none of that. Now my best friends are moving away: it's too late to do those things, at least for the time being. Of course, us all being internet-savvy young people, we can still be connected, but I'll miss the closeness.

Instead of despairing (I did a fair bit of that already), I wholly intend to not let my life become like this again. Sure we worked all summer and I was really stressed out, but we still had the weekends. There was no real reason to not socialize in the evenings. Being "too tired to hang out" equals "being alone when the dust settles". I've now experienced loneliness, and it's something I want no more of.

Related to this is a bigger issue, one I haven't really talked about with my friends. I don't know most of you nearly as well as I'd like to. As you might guess, I wish to change this while I still can. It's funny, really - we've been thinking about how to improve things at work, and it's always "communicate, communicate, communicate", and I've failed to grasp that in my own life.

As sad as I am over the departure of my friends, this just might be a lesson I was sorely in need of.