Dolphins

Detachment

I feel like I rarely get sideswiped. I am almost never overwhelmed. I don't know if this is a strength or a weakness, though. I mean, to people who are thrust into massive depressions when someone does even the most minutely offensive thing to them, this sounds like a great situation, I'm sure. Living in a steady state isn't as comforting as it sounds.

When something comes along that should cause me to be slammed, I step back and examine it as an outsider. This gives me unusual clarity and a pretty good handle on the situation, but I lose some of the depth of emotion that others remember so vividly. The weird thing is that I can usually identify how I otherwise SHOULD feel, and to what degree; I just sort of auto-suppress the majority of it. I don't look back and remember the pain or the anguish, but rather the lesson learned. Sometimes I learn something from the intended emotions. Sometimes I learn something from the sudden change of circumstance that I didn't really see coming.

Someone whom I know to be awesome and who I think will factor into the completion of the puzzle someday throws me off kilter. I was recently confused anyways. A long-term friend exhibits behavior that hints at something more. The possibility makes my tongue hurt. Why my tongue? Who knows. The first girl asks me what I think about her beginning to date a friend of hers. Too many circumstances preventing she and I right now, although I know she'll be important for a long time. I already said that. She sort of half asks, half furrows her brow in worry. Can you split between those two things? She texted. She asks and I tell her that I'm totally okay with it, because he is a good dude, and he'll look after her, which she sort of needs more than she'd like to admit. I mean, based on her history, she wouldn't appear to need ANYONE'S help, but I know better. She needs me, and I will need her more and more. She asked what I thought about her recent decision. I said it was cool. I said that I was surprised by the sudden change in her status in my life, and that I had to reconsider her future possible placement. I mean, does this ex out the possibility of her being my future love? Does the sudden maybe change of the long-term friend really mean that I've always sort of wanted it to mean? If it does, then I have to rethink Peace Corps, and Med School, and Everything.

None of this really affects me. It puts me into the same state of mind that I get into when trying to figure out the answer to a tough problem. A math problem, or a larger more conceptual problem. More abstract, more conceptual...conceptual. Conceptum "draft, abstract"...I don't know, the point is that everything hits me like a piece of a large puzzle that is itself a piece in an even larger puzzle. I have to figure out certain other peoples' lives so that I can figure out how they will fit into mine.

Pieces of the puzzle Pt I

In no particular order:

-Rufus Wainwright
-John Curring
-Neutral Milk Hotel
-The World According To Garp
-Terra
-The Allman Brothers
-"Christina'a World" by Andrew Wyeth
-Philip Glass
-Erin
-Adam
-Roadblocks to Med School
-Patti
-Broken Ankle
-Julee
-Shai Hulud
-The Beta Band
-"End of the Line" by The Traveling Wilburys
-Eating Disorders
-Social Work
-SEIU Disillusionment
-Detachment (this may warrant another entry)