There is an emptiness inside me that I cannot put my finger on.
I feel the lack of contact with him. Like, I notice my phone never goes off anymore. I notice when I have some stupid little thought, a funny moment happens, or I just want someone to chat to, and he's not there. I think there is always a certain amount of granted being taken by most friendships, but totally accidentally. I think a lot of people just get used to their relationships, and what they can or can't expect from certain people. Like, I know that if I want to leave the house right now and go see someone, my best bet is Ben. Jasmine is always busy/unavailable, and Henry takes a good three hours to just reply, let alone make a plan with. And I think in that respect, I always knew I could rely on him to just be there, and now he's not. There's this weird emptiness that has no real emotion or loss attached to it, because as yet it's just a lingering feeling. Like when someone you kind-of-know dies, and it takes a few months for it to really hit you. That sounds horrific as a metaphor, but there is a numbness that reminds me of that feeling of confused mourning. A funeral typically happens about a week after passing, but when it hasn't hit you yet, a funeral feels so cold and misplaced.
I think my empty feelings may also relate to my constantly thinning group of friends.
Ever since I got back and Sam left (in the same day), I have told myself that I don't have many friends in Norfolk. They all keep leaving me. This is, I guess, quite true, but it's also the wrong approach. I found myself giving advice recently, and I was giving advice that I had previously heard from Maria: the idea of asking the Universe for the wrong thing. If you say 'the weather looks shit today', it will be, where as if you say 'I hope today is sunny', you will find the weather to be better, and the next step, the one I'm not quite doing, but trying to, is to look at the sky and say 'hey look, I think the clouds are thinning already'. Regardless of what the weather does, it's your attitude towards it that makes a difference. The whole 'instead of waiting for the rain to pass, you've got to learn to dance in the rain' saying (that I just said quite wrong, but you get the gist). I was giving this advice to Henry, as he has a very negative view of his life at the moment, and as I was saying it, I heard myself, and realised I've got to take the advice too. Stop saying 'all my friends are leaving me', because that will in turn drive away current / future friends. I've got to be thankful for who is here, and keep in contact with the lucky few in amazing parts of the world, and just accept that change is a constant, and I am a constant, so I must embrace friends as they come and go, our worlds touch and pass, even if briefly, for even in the briefest of encounters, magic can happen.
And so, I am excited for the coming change. I hope that some things are not permanently changed, and a common ground can be found for my recently lost friendship. His parting words of 'it was nice knowing you' resonated in my mind with an air of closure and finality. I hope this was my misreading a strange situation. If not, it was equally nice knowing him, and I hope he knows that. I stand by my 'dirt off your shoulders' blog, and hope that this is just a quiet period.