the_cheat

When I look back at the past school year, I see several last-minute friendships. In the fall, I basically made two friends. One of them I lost contact with at the end of winter term, mostly because we weren't taking any classes together anymore, and the other, despite my efforts to make any sort of contact, doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with me anymore. This is odd to me because that was the friendship in which I was the most honest, the most earnest, and I tried the hardest and gave it my all. Why? Because I thought that the friendship was as important to the other person as it was to me.

Apparently, this is not so. It's weird, I feel like my heart is breaking all over again, but it's a different kind of breaking. This kind feels like I can never pick the pieces back up and put my heart back together. I've run out of superglue for my heart, at least with regard to that particular friend.

Love to me...is something that stays with you forever and ever and ever. No matter what happens, you will always love that person, always care, even if it's somewhat subdued by time or other relationships. For instance, a part of me still loves Brad, even though he cheated on me and I caught him in the act of doing so.

Love has a permanent quality which, no matter how hard you try, cannot be erased. If you try to forget it, the love somehow resurfaces and reminds you to remember.

While I have made some new, awesome friends as of late, I will always have that gap left by those people that have passed through my life, the people that I once called my "friends." I will always miss their company, their laughter, their smiles, their hugs, their conversation, their fun times, their sad times, and their good times.

I think when we are born, our heart is whole, no gaps, no holes, nothing. We have our parents who love us unconditionally, and outside of that, we don't care, because we're babies and have no need for that kind of complication. But as we grow older, our hearts start to lose pieces of itself to different relationships, like childhood friends (whom you love dearly) moving away or when you're a teen and you grow apart from your parents. Then of course you start getting into the more complex relationships in high school, and then some really big holes are made in your heart.

How does that one song put it? "The first cut is the deepest."

My heart right now...it's Swiss Cheese. The biggest gaps in my heart have been made by Brad and the friendship that I thought meant so much but turned out to not be so.

I don't want my heart to be so full of holes that it becomes cold and stops beating. The only way you can mend these holes and make them smaller is by moving on with your life, and making new friends.

I will always dearly miss all my old friends, but I can't keep looking to the past.

I have new opportunities on the horizon, and I'll be damned if I sit here and let them pass me by.

~T.C.