My battle of loving too much continues. Over the weekend a friend let me down again, and once again, I’m sure he thought nothing of it, because most people wouldn’t. But it brought me back to my little problem.

My friends are everything to me, and it hurts when I realize that I’m not everything to them.

That’s a very selfish and unhealthy thing for me to think.

I’m trying to learn to wean from such a heavy reliance on my friends, but the only way I can do that is to shift that reliance onto someone else (like God). It’s going to take a long time, I think. It’s tough because I have to play this balance game. I love hanging out with friends, but if I hang out with them too much, I start depending on them for things they can’t give me.

A big part of me doesn’t want to rely completely on God, because I feel like relying completely on anything is unhealthy. I’m trying to work out what I should be doing.

In other news, a stray cat took up residence at Matt and Catherine’s house. It’s obviously a well-cared-for house cat that ran away or something, so they’re gonna try to find the owner. If they can’t find them, though, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna take the cat. So that’s something to look forward to.

So after months and months, Matt’s wedding was finally this weekend. I took off work Friday in order to make the drive to Arkansas for the rehearsal. I made it with plenty of time, and we played frisbee beforehand. The rehearsal itself was a bit rough for me, as there was a lot of conversation in various groups during the downtime. Thankfully, I had my iPod and a book.

After the rehearsal, we had dinner. It was an emotional experience. Matt’s brother-in-law gave the toast, telling the story of how Matt and Cat started dating. Cat’s sister, Kara, also told her bit. Then it snowballed a bit to everyone opening up about their feelings towards Matt and Cat. It was a very powerful time. (more…)

Lately I’ve been more eager to say what’s on my mind in a social setting. What bothers me is that sometimes I do it at the expense of someone else. It’s kind of new for me, being so socially charged. I think it’s because of living alone. I have more stored up social energy now, because when I go home for the day I don’t have to talk to anyone. So when I hang out with my friends now, I have so much to say that I think I’ve been overpowering others. I’m trying to make an effort to stop.

It happens at work sometimes, too. From the stories I’ve told and the way I talk, I think the biostatisticians think that I’m a slacker and that I don’t respect the people I work for on my projects. I’ve kind of presented the hooligan side of myself to them, and I think I might have subconsciously done that on purpose. Whenever I feel like things are too formal or too “nice”, I feel the need to break out. When things aren’t “real” enough, I try to inject some reality into the situation. And work tends to be a bit too formal for my taste, at least whenever we hang out with some of the statisticians my age.

Who knows.

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My bookshelf has run out of unread books, but I needed something to keep myself occupied. So I started reading Ender’s Game again. It really is a great book.

I ran across a paragraph that I identified with today. Ender had been made a commander, so his life started going down a different path from his closest friend, Alai.

The next day [Ender] passed Alai in the corridor, and they greeted each other, touched hands, talked, but they both knew that there was a wall now. It might be breached, that wall, sometime in the future, but for now the only real conversation between them was the roots that had already grown low and deep, under the wall, where they could not be broken. The most terrible thing, though, was the fear that the wall could never be breached … from the moment we are not together, Alai is a stranger, for he has a life now that will be no part of mine, and that means that when I see him we will not know each other.

It made me think about the friendships I had that are like that now. For a while now, I haven’t talked to many of the people I went to college with. That’s just the way life is. People move on. Nothing lasts forever. They meet their future wives or husbands, and then they fade away a little. Or maybe their path is slowly veering off from yours because of different values or ambitions. That’s life. You go where you can find a job or acceptance.

I think living alone is helping me solidify my self-acceptance. I used to hang on too tightly to my friends, relying on them for self-esteem. Then when they weren’t around as much, I felt like a piece of me had gone with them. You know, I don’t really know if that behavior is healthy or not. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.

Life goes on.

I hate TV commercials for praise and worship albums. They make me want to gag sometimes.

Lately I find that every Monday right after work isn’t the best time to go to Flying Saucer. By the time I get there, there’s already like 6 people there. I go from a Monday at work, most of which I spend alone in my cubicle, directly to a rowdy group of folks. It’s kind of a shock. I mean, I get as rowdy as the next guy sometimes, but I need some buffer time.

Sometimes all I really want to do is either go home and unwind or have a drink with only a few friends (as opposed to 8 of them). I don’t like going there when there’s a crap load of people at our table. At least not on a Monday.

Over the weekend I set up a wiki. Go check it out if you get bored.