human compost

i've done well in keeping in touch with old friends. many of my closest friends today were my closest friends nearly a decade ago. from when we were children. from high school and college. i've kept in touch with those who were mere acquaintances from that time--and many of those individuals became good friends after the fact.

i lost one however. we all lose a few, moreso those who are on the fringe as an accessory to your life. they have little substance to your life, and you have little substance on theirs. this one was substance. i don't know how we lost each other, but we are so lost that i often forget that she exists.

but i remembered her today.

and even after seeing each other again at the wedding of a mutual close friend, she quickly escaped my thoughts. and i'm sure i disappeared from her thoughts as well. it is unlike me. i am better at remembering--i at least have a frequent random thought. how did she become such a nonentity in my life?

i am disturbed by this.

even more disturbing is that i often have an urge to cut off all my relationships. to step back into the shadows and completely disappear from the world that knows me. to reintroduce myself--no more reinvented, only as i am--to a new population.

i find that, as of late, i enjoy more the company of people who barely know me. who know little of where i came from, of my background, of my personal likes and dislikes. who i know, and who know me, on a purely superficial level. and what is more is that i have sought to preserve this superficiality when before i would chip away at it until an understanding was reached and a bond made.

i always liked to perceive a person from their naked self. to engage in conversation that was most revealing. to understand and learn at the core of the person. now, i don't want to know. neither do i want to become attached. i do not want to have an influence on my life or be an influence on anyone elses.

but i go through the motions.

i pretend i care when i really don't. i fake an understanding that i don't have. i will let you let me get to know you, but i hesitate to let you get to know me.

if you never know me, you can't hurt me.

i don't know if all of this is the truth. it's the truth today. it applies at the moment. it might change tomorrow. it will probably change in a week. but i suppose the truth is disposable, just as feelings and people are.

this thought transformed into something entirely unexpected.