Would you like some cornflakes?

Last night a long time friend messaged me and said she'd like to meet me somewhere for breakfast, just she and I. She expressed the need to want to catch up and that she wanted to know what I was up to. Understandable. I made me feel guilty in a way. In our emails I do a very bad job of talking about myself. She goes to Ball State University and I rarely see her anymore. Perhaps once every two months or so. I agreed.

Anyway, we met and brought one another up to date about our lives. I did as much as I could at least. Finally she proceeded to tell me that she was engaged to her boyfriend. Apparently he proposed to her a few days ago. Being her "oldest" and most "loyal" friend she wanted me to know before anyone else. I had no warning. No hint, no clue, of why she'd brought me there. I can't express my surprise. Rarely someone slips one over on me, but she did.

I just sat there, staring. And for the first time I can recall I found it difficult to smile. But I forced myself. My very best smile. I delivered all the right things that needed to be said, somehow, when all I wanted was to run for the door.

I am happy for her, really I am. If anyone is worthy of that girl's heart, it's her finace. He's a good, well-rounded guy who will take care of her. He simply adores her.

But at the same time, I feel so incredibly selfish. Many of my friends are getting married and having kids. It kind of annoys me, yeah, because most of them are stupid, but it has never made me feel as I do now. Brittany really isn't being stupid. Though she's engaged she's finishing school. She's still following her dreams. She's with a good guy. But for some reason hearing of her engagement totally rips my heart out.

We grew up together and she makes up half of my childhood memories. We had birthday parties together, we got our license on the same day. We went to prom with cousins... But now she's getting married. Without me. (that sounds weird hahaha) I'm so afraid that our comradeships is discentigrading. It is with all of my friends. I can't relate to them anymore. I'm the only single one now. I don't mind being single but it separates me from them now.

Out of the group I've always been considered the most "mature." But now I'm the immature one. I'm living in the shadows of a life that is now gone. I'm the only one not adjusting. I'm stepping into the "Real World" and it's ok. I don't mind working my butt off to earn money for school. I want to support myself. I want to make a life for myself without my mom and step-dad's help. I like having responsibility. But at the same time I feel so utterly lost. I don't have my friends to escape to. I used to enjoy hanging out with them, thinking of something else, but now I'm even more out of place with them.

Time goes way too fast. People say that youth is so quick and the rest of your life is spent being “grown up,” where you basically lose all your creativity and free will and conform to a culture that’s speeding up in such extravagant ways that it numbs my mind to think about it. We devolving as a species in some respects, as things have taken a turn for the worst as we are no longer patient, attentive, original humans.

I see it happening. We're getting older and I'm being left behind.

I don't mean to become mushy but I'd like to share a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson that I can relate to oh so well at the moment

Tears, Idle Tears

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more

The world is going too fast for me. The people I adore are changing, evolving into someone else. I no longer know them. Lives of the people I've clung to and idolized are now fading away. It seems that when you grow up you must let go of something for everything you gain. I can't help but to wonder if it's worth it.