Today has been a bit of a nostalgic day for me. My younger brother graduated from high school today, which him being the youngest in our family and how old that makes me feel is a completely different subject matter all to itself. Where the feelings of nostalgia lie is not so much in the fact that he graduated today as much as it is the very interesting coincidence that it just so happened to fall on Friday, June 4th. That is the exact same day 6 years ago that I myself graduated from high school.
That was a day that will be long remembered. A day that I believe will forever be etched into my memory as if it only happened yesterday. And not just because it was my graduation day. No, that would be incredibly cheesy if it was just that, although I do believe one will probably still find the cheese factor pretty high nonetheless, heh heh. ^_^' The reason why I will probably forever have memorized the exact happenings of that day are because at the same time as being a wonderful, joyous day, it was also perhaps one of the worst days of my life as well. It was the day that introduced two people experiencing true feelings of love for someone for the first time into the dark and hopeless world of that love being taken away from them. For one of those two people however, it only really took them about 6 or 7 months to recover when he met the woman of his life whom he is now preparing to become espoused to in just a few months. For that same other person however, that day put him in a dark abysmal hole that took him two years to climb out of and, though that past is well behind him, even still to this day struggles with the effects that experience had on him.
If you haven't noticed yet, I speak of my best friend and myself respectively. Now the happenings of that day and the contents of both of our situations are a bit complex for me to go into very deeply, but what I will never forget are the exact feelings of that day. At times I felt the rush of excitement a graduating student always feels. But at others I either felt concern for my best friend, feelings of loneliness and inferiority, or feelings of sadness and desperation in trying to tell someone how I felt about them before I would never see them again and then inevitably the feeling of that hope I had when I finally got it off my shoulders go fluttering out the window. I was honestly at a point by the end of the day where I am probably lucky to be here before you all today, if not for the encouraging words of my best friend, who was experiencing the same things I was.
Flash forward to six years latter. Both these fine young women are married now. Don't know about the one involving Peter but the one involving me even has a one and a half year old son now too boot. Of course I already mentioned how well off Peter is doing, and then of course, there's me...... Though I have long since moved on from that particular situation, and though I am much wiser and far more skilled with people than I was back then, I still can't help but think of how it might have effected me in the long run. For the most part I like to say it helped me develop into the person that I am today - a much stronger, more mature and capable person than I once thought I could ever be. And even though I still remain to be very much so the friendly, laid back and good natured person that I've always been, at the same time I can't help but think this development into a strong, mature and capable person has also made me more cynical, rebellious, bitter and angry than I thought I could ever be. Though I'm as introverted as ever, and probably always will be, I really have broken down a lot of my personal walls that I used to have, and am still in the process of breaking down even more. Gradually I have been breaking out of my shell I used to be in way back when, and I do believe the events of 6 years ago today lead me in that right direction. But recent events involving my driving people that I love and care about deeply away from me and my current confrontation with others (including my aforementioned best friend) over wanting to follow my own advice and live my life the way I feel is right for me rather than take their guiding advice is starting to make me wonder if the strong, mature and capable and at the same time cynical, rebellious, bitter and angry person I have become today is starting to drive everyone I love away from me, and that one day I will wake up cold and alone.
What I believe I need to do in order to prevent that is to find the middle grounds between the positive and negative effects of breaking down those walls. I've forced too much of the negative in the former example and as a result I may never be able to salvage what I lost as a result and may have to live with that mistake for the rest of my life. With the latter however, I am trying to find that middle ground and even though I've succeeded for the most part, some of the negative has come out towards them. So far they have been as understanding and forgiving as I've always known them to be about it, but at the same time I can't help but feel I'm on thin ice as they continue to confront me about it, and I continue to wonder whether or not they'll be true friends in the end and eventually understand what it is I'm trying to do. But I do believe that if I can find this middle ground and I can find someone who can understand it and not get offended, then perhaps the day the effects of today 6 years ago will finally, truly be behind me.
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