running.

What is it about this place that makes it so much harder? Why does it seem so much more evident, when I am sure that I am having the time of my life? What are these feelings, and why now?

It's raw pain. Grief. Honesty. It's remembering things I worked so hard to forget because I have to tell it all over again. I have to clue people in; I have to explain. And forgetting had become so easy, something that became part of my everyday routine. Lori made it easier to pretend that there was never anyone else. But there is and there was, and here I am faced with her face again and again as I tell my story, and talk about how it felt, and am forced to deal with how it still feels.

Having this best friend who directs these questions at me, who looks me in the eye and demands to know why I'm doing what I'm doing and why I'm who I am doesn't make it any easier. I've been running for years, afraid of what my happen if I slowed down to take a breath, and I've realized now that once you slow, it's very hard to get going again. Once you tell it and uncover all of those repressed memories, it's hard to shove them back into the back of your mind and go about your business.

It's hard when she should have been celebrating half a century, but I was simply documenting what I remembered of her 42nd year.

It's hard when I have a friend whose relationship with her mother makes me so jealous that I'm certain the desire in my heart will never lose it's wanting, it's aching.

It's hard when I long to call her and discuss these feelings, and how I'm growing up, and how it's scary.

It's hard when I just miss her. And why do i? Why was it so much easier before I came here? I suppose it's a plethora of reasons: this new time period in my life, all of these news friends for whom I must give explanation after explanation, the relationships of other people and their parents thrust in my face. And it's not their faults; it's my fault for letting it get to me, for pushing it down all of these years, for refusing to talk about it, and this is what happens. My heart hardens, and I am certain nobody will ever understand. Nobody's been here; nobody knows what it feels like to want someone so badly that it consumes your thoughts, filling them with what-ifs and could-have-beens and maybe-one-days. I'm sure someone does.

Someone does, right? Anyone? Does anyone understand that feeling? Does anyone run? I've been running for so long, and I have a feeling that if I don't slow down soon and handle this, it's going to take over my life and ruin relationships and step in before I can start to build anything worth having.