This turned into a pretty sad and emo post.
Sorry for that. But I needed to bleed all of this out.

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Today was a meh day.

The morning started off well enough. I wrote. I had breakfast. I finished my cross stitch and listened to my audio book. But I did nothing after that. The more I thought about doing something the more I felt myself digging my heels in. The more I didn’t want to leave my room.

So I didn’t. I curled back under the covers and slept off and on all day. I cooked around noon, after I had finished my stitching, but that was it. I didn’t go to the gym, or aikido. I didn’t put in any time on my digital painting.

At 8pm I showered and got dressed. I packed up my book bag, and went out to my car. I put my bag in the back seat like normal, and as soon as I shut the door I wanted to break down and cry.

For no reason.

Arg. Why brain? Why?

What is there to possibly be sad about, other than being a total slacker and not doing the things we know we need to do?

I sat on the curb next to my car and called my mom.

She answered, and I tried to sound ok. I asked her what she was up to. She was cleaning off the coffee table because that’s been annoying her and something she’s been putting off. She also got around to cleaning the house because it was pretty icky.

She said that she had already talked to Jason and John, my bothers, so it was ‘perfect’ that I was calling her. She got to talk to all of her kids on the same day, and she felt super lucky and loved.

Great… And here I am about to ruin it with my emo nonsense.

She asked how I was, and I sort of laughed.

I said that I had been a slug all day. That I hadn’t done much of anything.

After some hesitating I told her that I was sitting in front of my car and that I wanted to cry at the thought of having to go into work and being around people. That I had no reason to feel the way I did. That I knew beating myself up over it wouldn’t make anything better, but that I legitimately had no reason for feeling down.

I told her that I wished I understood myself better. If I knew where the emotions where coming from I could at least be understanding.

We talked for a bit more and eventually I said that I think the whole Tre thing is bothering me a lot more than I am letting myself acknowledge. I keep trying to turn a blind eye to it. Glossing over it. In grief stages that’s denial.

Maybe still being tired from my 3 hours of sleep the other night factors into everything and me being overly sensitive right now. But I think the main contributor to my sadness is Tre.

We figured out the Google Hangout thing yesterday, which was cool. I’m super grateful for his help.

One of the comments he made was that he was glad we were getting this straight now, because pretty soon that was going to be the only way we would be able to see each other.

Ok… So this is what a lance through the chest feels like… Give me a second to relearn how to breath with this giant, gaping hole I just realized was there…

There was another point where I was in the break room and Tre and a few other people were in different labs. We were trying to see how our setup would work when we weren’t in the same room.

At the end I mentioned that I had to get going. I needed to look at the room at Ashley’s place and Tre said, “Oh. So you’re staying in Florida?”

“Uh…Yeah… I am a DAD student still. I sort of have to stay here.” I was smiling and saying it in a joking manor, but it hurt on the inside because it’s true. I have to stay here, otherwise I would move. To Texas, California, Washington, New York. Anywhere. Literally almost every state has a friend who means the world to me. Every state except the one I’m in.

“I keep forgetting about that! I always think, “I’m leaving so you should leave.” Come on, Jen. Get with the program.” He was smiling while he said it. Joking in the way we always do. We both laughed.

“I keep thinking the same thing, dude. I’m staying so you should stay.” More laughing as we both slowly bleed to death.

God. Even just typing that hurts.

And it’s weird. I don’t want to date Tre. I don’t want to be involved with him romantically, though I do admire his work ethic. I think he is honorable. I think he would make someone extremely happy and would be a worthy companion for another person.

And maybe part of the reason I don’t see him in that light is because he plans to leave. So my brain won’t put energy into something that will only make me suffer more than I already am. There’s also the fact that he has a girlfriend, and the fact that I don’t think he is interested in me.

I know I talk about him a lot. We’re working on freelance together. We spend hours talking about life and projects, and crazy random stuff.

Tre is one of the few people here, in my immediate, physical world, that I would consider a friend. A true friend. He listened to me when I needed to talk about the break up with Jarrett. He listened to me when I talked about Sir. He told me about the issues he had with Sara, his girlfriend. The frustrations of school and classmates.

He told me about his trips home to visit family and his friends. He listened to my story about catching the bouquet at my cousin’s wedding. We’ve talked about where he wants to go with his career. Where I want to go with mine. What we both want out of life.

We have deep conversations. We both accept each other, completely, for who we are. There’s no judgment.

And he’s going to leave.

I know it’s more of an, “I’ll see you later,” situation. But we’re back to that whole left side verses right side thing in my brain, where my right side is all, “Fuck your logic and the horse it rode in on.”

I feel like it’s unfair. It sucks. I hate it.

I hate how I feel so deeply sometimes.

I hate how I can tell it hurts him, too. How sometimes he’ll say a joke about leaving, and his voice will falter ever so slightly. Most people wouldn’t notice it. Would write it off. But I’m observant, and I hear it. I see the way the muscles in his face tighten for a moment, as if in pain, and then ease over. I know he’s trying to hide it, because I do the same thing.

I should be enjoying the last little bit of time we have. I know with the Internet that our friendship won’t be over.

But all I can think of is how I’ll come to work, and he won’t be in an open lab. He won’t be walking down the hall to wave to me. I’ll walk through the hall and remember the times he was there. The spots where we had conversations will be tombstones for me; like they are for other people I miss.

I’ll remember, and I’ll miss those interactions, and I’ll be sad, and I’ll hurt and I’ll wonder why I keep doing this to myself. Why I keep caring for people when I know they’re going to leave.

I hate how it feels like they are leaving me, when I know it has nothing to do with me at all. It’s nothing personal, and yet I feel abandoned.

I wonder if I am at this job because I’m an emotional masochist, or psychologically I’m so messed up from my previous relationships that I’m here so none of my relationships, friendship or otherwise, can last.

I wonder if I make it so there’s no possibility of long term interaction.

I don’t think that’s what it is. But you never know. It’s crazy enough to be something I would do subconsciously. Fuck you too, brain.

I’m raging against this fact. This end. I don’t want to lose another friend. I don’t want to lose another person who means so much to me.

The tree dragon on my demo reel is actually part of a set of dragons. The one I rigged was the dragon of autumn. There are dragons for spring, summer, and winter as well.

I asked Tre the other day if he was bored, and if he wanted to do a model by chance… or three…

Long story short, he was going to model the spring dragon, the one I’ve wanted for three years, for me as a way to say thank you.

As a goodbye present.

I was so touched when he told me that. And crushed at the same time.

All I could think was that I don’t want him to leave. That I don’t want him to have a reason to give me a gift.

The only thing I want, the only gift, is for my friends to stay where I can still be with them.

I wish that wasn’t selfish of me. By wanting them to stay I’m basically saying that I want them to give up their dreams, the very reason they came to this school in the first place.

Forget everything we talked about, all those goals, and ambitions, all those deep connecting conversations about life, and just stay here so I don’t feel alone. So I can keep this feeling of being connected to something, someone.

Please, please stay so I can remember that I’m not just this entity on the outside of life, outside of any social circle. That I truly am a human and not just a walking, talking dictionary full of information, only referenced with something is needed.

Part of me wishes he had been a jerk. Part of me wishes we weren’t friends. In the stages of grief this is anger.

Why did you have to be nice to me? Why did you have to have cool projects that I wanted to help you with? Why couldn’t you have been rude and inconsiderate? Why couldn’t your projects have sucked? Why did you have to be accepting, and understanding? Why couldn’t you have been like everyone else? How did you worm your way into my inner circle, and how could I have let that happen? Why did I let you in when I knew what the outcome would be? Why are you worth all of this pain?

Part of me wants to hate you. Part of me wants to blame you for this pain. I want to be angry. I want to be a bitch. I want to rage and lash out. I want there to be a target. I want there to be something to make suffer the same way I am.

But there isn’t. It’s life. It’s an intangible thing. There’s no one to blame. There’s no fault. There’s simply facts, and no matter how much I hate them, rage at them, internally yell, scream, claw, and kick at them, they aren’t going to change.

I just want this pain to stop. To not be here in my chest eating away at me like freezing acid. I want these feelings to lessen or become easier to deal with, cope with.

I wish it wasn’t the same, over and over. I wish there was a way to express how I feel without sounding emo and whinny or making people worry about me. I wish I didn’t feel weak for feeling like this. I wish it didn’t feel like the end. Like a death. I wish goodbye didn’t feel like grief for me.

But it does and it hurts so much, and my mind keeps coming back to that stupid phrase.

“It’s not fair.” – denial phase. Damnit. Could I move past square one, please?

No. It’s not fair. There is no ‘fair’.

There are facts. Ok. Facts.

Nothing bad happened today. Fact. Nothing really happened at all. Fact.

But right now, I feel like today sucked. Right now I feel like I’m having an emotional breakdown inside of an empty lab room because I keep crying in front of a computer screen while I try to type through my tears and get the emotions out. While I bleed all over a keyboard so I can maybe keep it together as I walk out to my car since there are still students around.

I don’t know what else to do other than cry it all out, and wake up tomorrow to a different day. One where hopefully I have accepted the facts of my reality rather than continuing to rage and fight against them.

I don’t know what else to do other than acknowledge that I have another wound in my chest and that the only thing I can do for it is let time pass so I can heal.

I think I’m past the denial stage. I accept Tre is leaving, and that it sucks, and that I’m angry / sad (Jeez, I can’t even figure out what fucking emotion to feel… Arg! /rage) about it. I suppose I should look at what the other stages of grief are so I know what other bat-shit insane things my brain is going to do to me.