Braaaawk! Serious thoughts, braaaawk!

I am feeling a bit off. I have discovered a blog that belongs to an old friend of mine. We were very close during our freshman year of college, but at the beginning of our second year, there was some sort of falling out, and it all went to hell. Don't ask me to explain it because it's complicated and personal, and if I want to talk about something personal, I'll write it in my personal journal.

Anyway, towards the end of our freshman year, she became close with a guy I was seeing and later was not seeing. And then I was seeing him again, and then I was not seeing him again. And so it remains. Now they're best friends and roommates and working at the same place. It's cool.

The reason I feel off about this is because her latest blog entry mentions me (in relation to this guy). Basically, it says what I just said... that she met her best friend through me and yadda yadda. It weirded me out. I don't know why. Don't waste your time psychoanalyzing it because that's what I'm about to do even though I should just shut the hell up.

At first, I found it slightly shocking that I was even mentioned, even if just as a nameless side character in a story about someone else. (Nameless, yes. More on that soon.) I think about this girl all the time. Of all of the relationships I've had and lost, hers is among those that I feel most regretful towards. In fact, I can count on two fingers the number of people I am genuinely upset about losing like that. But I think about her in my own head, and it's private. I've never once considered that she most certainly thinks of me, too. It's silly because she's extremely intelligent and introspective. It just sort of turned me upside-down. Same goes for her best friend (the one I used to date.) When he reads her blog entry, as I imagine he will, he's going to think about me in passing as well.

What's weirdest is knowing for sure that two people who are not in my life are having thoughts of me... and that they're probably not thinking very fond things.

I realized that in this entry, I was just "that guy", significant to her, if perhaps only slightly, but to anyone who hears her story, I'm just some faceless, generic "guy" who played the role of friend, but only as a vessel to meet a better friend. I know I'm overanalyzing it. I know there was no reason to use my name, especially since it was just a passing reference. Hell, look whose name I'm not using! But it still made me think, ok?

Incidentally, I am also not linking to her blog because I'm afraid that she keeps track of links and site stats as closely as I do and that she'll find her way back here and know that I'm having these stupid feelings. I also don't want to keep knowing that she is thinking of me and remembering me in moments about which I am not proud. And I know it's stupid to assume that she follows dorky blog stats as closely as I do, but we really have a lot of bizarre things in common (something with which we were constantly amazed when we were friends), so I'm not chancing it.

This is a new emotion. I guess it's nice that I can still have them. But what it speaks to and what I'm discovering about myself is that I do not handle losing people well. With death, it's one thing. People die, and there may be regrets about things you didn't get to do or say, but there's nothing you can do to stop it. The relationship ends. But with this and with certain other people I have lost in one way or another, there are so many things I know I could have done to try and stop it from going away. Now I have no idea what these people think of me. I have no idea what it could be like now.

I have trouble letting go. I'm sometimes reminded that logic and reason can only go so far in dealing with life. I'm good at those things, and they can make me feel like I've moved on, but then seemingly insignificant things happen and give rise to the spectre of buried emotions I thought were gone. Not to sound overly Chicken Soup for the Soul (though it's probably too late), but people never really leave us. I still love everybody I've ever loved just as strongly as if they were still big players in my life. I'm not always aware of it, but when it comes out, it's unbelievably intense.

I don't think emotions have memories. I don't think I'm simply remembering how I used to love them. It is still very real. All in all, although there is a certain degree of discomfort with this particular situation, I'm extremely grateful to be feeling this way. It's comforting that I can still love people completely.

This entry took a different turn than I expected. Damn, now I'm going to have to go to bed with serious thoughts. Although, I'm actually happy about this. It's something I haven't thought about too much. Writing through it brought a lot of new feelings out, and I feel as though they are things I have spent the past couple of years repressing in one way or another. I haven't expressed it all here, but they're there.

Aaaand, I'm getting abstract in my head and can no longer put a sentence together. Time to go sit with it. Thanks for reading this far. You're obviously very bored.