right now I just want to get away from some people. I want to be apart from them for a long time. Not forever--but when I come back I wish that all my cares would be gone. I wish that my cares would be gone now. I am so angry at them, and I can't stop thinking hateful things about and at them. It is a struggle to quiet my mind. I ask desperately that God would help me. I imagine myself putting these cares on a plate and handing them to my Father to deal with. I wish the cares would stop jumping back on me.

I want to be objective about them, as if I had no memory of painful situations between them and me, but when I am with any of them, even by myself and theirself, I feel that I always begin to Think again. I see their smile and I see things behind it. What do they have behind that smile? I watch their eyes closely; when they don't meet mine, I wonder why. I wonder, mostly, about what I've done. What did I do to push their opinion of me in this new direction? Why do they, people of outspoken "integrity" and with more-than-common honesty, not approach the subject with me (like I have tried and I think mostly failed with them) that there is something different. I think there is this difference: that since last semester they, with their actions, don't want to spend time or exchange, or talk to me anymore. Yes, it hurts my feelings; they sure seemed to have an interest in these things before.

So I asked them Why... why are things different. What did I do to disillusion their "interest" in me? I'm still here, at SigEp. They live just as close as before. I have told them that I do still want to be around them. They know that now.(They didn't before-they said-but never questioned me about why. This disappointed me). Their answers were similar. The schedules don't align. They only have so much time in the day. They realized that we don't have as much in common as they do with each other. I am, literally, not high enough in their list of priorities.

I wish to know what changed that - the shift in priorities. I asked them both (at separate times and places) what I did: "What did I do that you don't think of me as highly as before?"

Their answers made me sick because they were, to me, like air. Weightless. "It was nothing you did..."

I believed them both to be Good Friends - people I could trust more than most, open, honest, loyal. I know people don't get along sometimes, but I had lost patience and wanted to know what the deal was. Why could I not know why? Why not say, "Thaddaeus, I must say, because of this and this I feel estranged from you and we cannot be the same as before." Well I, probably unwisely, dragged it out of them. It hurts now because of the weightlessness of their reasons. I feel like I am the only one who is looking back, wishing to fix the situation. "Fix", because we are so uncomfortable when I am with any of them, and although i thought talking to them would make things better, the results only seemed to make me feel even farther from them than before. Let me explain:

I think about their reasons and wonder if these reasons are why I was their friend in the first place:

"I was your friend because I fit in your schedule? You thought of me as special because I am so and so much in common with you?! You liked that I am motivated by the same things?!?"

Why don't you all just be honest with yourselves and say, "Actually, it was never you I liked and befriended, but ME--I wanted you to Affirm that I am something. Thanks for making me feel better about myself for a while, Thaddaeus, but now I've found another who is even more of a mirror of myself. I'm sure you can understand. This is how I think of friends and their relationships."

Now.....now I think I hate them. I feel very used. I am (like I always am) confused. They were so important to me, and I admired each of them in their own respective ways. I was always thankful for their being-in-my-life. Now, though, I think they disgust me. They are like robots, calculating the best way to do things. There is no feeling. They want to improve themselves very much, and they are very competitive with their own ideal in the sense of excelling. I think now that maybe excelling is their deepest motivation. This, to me, is very wrong. I guess my reason for saying this is because I believe I am no longer useful to them, and so they don't care anymore. The proof of this, to me, is that they have never tried to amend or approach the subject of the obvious discomfort and gap between us, as compared with before. Actions, as we all know, are more powerful than words. Their opinions of me, not bound by personal interest or love, faded when Better arrived.

***
I have reread what I have written so far to gather and refocus what I am trying to say. I am afraid that I have perceived this situation as being too personal to me. It is hard not to misperceive the situation: these people whom I wish to be objective toward once again, to let go of the past feelings, and when i pray about forgiveness toward them, that I would keep it as with other dear friends that I previously had a similar problem with--but these new people, I have difficulty forgetting.

I admit that I am very selfish. I don't think less of myself about this (Jesus has taught me that I am and will be pretty selfish and that I just have to give things to Him - cause He loves me anyway--which is cool). My selfishness here is about my inability to let go. I tell myself that maybe if I could get away from these people for a while, the constant reminder of their non-existence in my life as I would like it, maybe then I would be strengthened enough to come back and not trouble myself with this not-letting-go-ness. I look forward to and I do see hope for a time when I will love them again as I have before (i.e. truly). It comes and goes, presently.

I hate it when it goes, though. I love loving people, and it has (since this Christmas break) become so much easier to love people. Unfortunately, it can be easier for me to love a stranger than it is to love someone that I long for love in return in some way. God, of course, tells me "life isn't fair - but I love you!" but I wish it were, sometimes.

---written march 10. (at this point i was all rambled out, but i post it as it was anyway)