Or something like that. I don't remember what she said. I don' make it a point to lie to people, but there are things I say and things I don't. And once in a while, things I need to cover up. She is right, though. This blog is one of the few places I just kind of spew myself out.

Well, honesty hour-and-a-half last night was pretty awesome. Warm, playground, stars. How much better could it get? And then there was today. It was all right; normal Wednesday and whatnot. And then they walk into the dining hall.

It wasn't like it hurt or anything...I was just surprised. Didn't think I would ever see them there, let alone sit literally a table down from them. And from a group of friends. I'm sorry, let me make that clear- my friends. I don't mean to emphasize my as a way of claiming ownership, but as a recognition; they're their friends, but these...were also my friends. I can understand that we don't really talk or hang around each other much anymore. But seeing them...seeing them reminds me of how alienated I am. Sure, yeah, I have a rather big support group. I am blessed to have so many people who love me and care about me. I really do. Dawn, Elora, Kristine, Josh, Taylor, Kendrick, Eva, Ariel, Deion, Jo, Ian, Praise, Grace, Angela, GP, Genna, Cole...the list goes on. Each relationship and friendship in their own way.

It's just that when I saw them, I saw my absence. If I were as depressed as I used to be, and I swear, I'm fighting really hard not to get sucked back into this again, I would say that they never needed me. They didn't need me, I wasn't important, I could die and they would still be perfectly perfect without me. Just like how it was. I can make a bet that NONE of them thought about me except one, and she doesn't count because she's been talking to me today. Not one. Other than her. How depressing is that? One is a friend I've known since I was four. One is a friend I sometimes to go Bible study with. One is my ex-best friend who could probably list ten things off the top of his head about me no one else knows. It brings me back to those days a year and a half after the break up, when everyone took sides and I was basically left alone. With a friend or two, but after I lost him, I pretty much lost everything.

And so I tried. I tried really hard to show that I was okay. That I was okay without them too. That I didn't need them. That I could manage just fine by myself, because the reality is, I can. Not one of them needs me, and that's fine, that's okay- it's a mutual thing. It's nice to fellowship, maybe once in a blue moon, but that's really about it. It's not like I wasn't content before they showed up. But when those feelings came to me...I felt that I had to outwardly show more than ever I was determined and I was okay. But that drains a lot out of me.

"You can't stay strong forever."

"Watch me."

My big sister knows better than to say that to me. But she did because she was being honest and expected me to break, because she knows what kind of person I am. She knows I need someone there. But I told her to watch me be fine, because that's exactly what I'm going to be. Went outside to the swing benches after dinner because it was so warm, even though it was already dark. I looked up at the stars and journaled. And then I wrote.

Why do we look at the stars and dream? Why do we dive into the ocean and wonder? Human beings are attracted to the mystery, the possibility in each unanswered question. Education, therefore, is not answering the question, "What do we know?" but it is, in fact, asking, "What don't we know?"

We don't know if there's anything beneath the waters of Loch Ness, so we tell stories of a monster hidden below. We don't know what exists down in the abyss of the Challenger Deep, so we send submarines and cameras down to the depths. Much of the ocean remains unexplored, and so stories, stories everywhere. That's where lore comes in. Exploration- means exactly what it sounds like. Exploiting lore, paving the way to concrete knowledge.

Little by little, the mystery disappears. Soon, one will ask the question, "What is there to discover? What is there to motivate us through the existence we call life?

God knew this, and so there will forever be mysteries that haunt and intrigue us. To dig and unearth some, but to never reach the bottom. There will always be things we don't know.

Like why some people refuse to grow up. Or like the nostalgia of seeing those you haven't seen in a long time and realizing that they are no longer who they are. Or why those who walk out of our lives do. We are left with that one footprint, evidence enough that they were there, but never being able to fill the hole that follows after.