A Sleepy Girl's Thoughts on Life

I'm feeling all nostalgic again today at work. As I've mentioned before, the sad songs always do this to me. This time it's "Let There Be Love" by Oasis, which is probably one of the most brilliant songs I've ever heard. But anyway, what I'm feeling today is "friend loss." I no longer feel like I am part of a group of friends.

I feel isolated.

Anti-social.

Alone.

Let me explain. I DO have friends. Really good friends. The problem is that I've entered a stage in my life where I don't have the type of friend situation I used to have.

For example, in high school, I had my solid little group. We'd eat lunch together and hang out on weekends, and a bunch of us were on the crew team. We enjoyed being together, Shalini, Stacey, Ashley, Erin, Melissa, Whitney, Alex and me (hopefully I'm not forgetting anyone).

Then we all went our separate ways to college. I always assumed I'd stay friends with almost everyone, but of course that didn't happen. We tried, but most of us lost what we had in common before (going to the same high school and knowing the same people).

I experienced some friend loss then, but I made a whole new group of friends in college. It was me, Shalini--who's stuck with me forever--Diana, Kyle, Steve and Adam against the world. We had a great time together, whether it was drinking in someone's dorm room, launching gigantic water balloons at people, or playing endless hours of Mario Kart.

I remembered all of this last night as I watched the video I made sophomore year out of all our old webcam footage, just a bunch of clips of us goofing off, being drunk, dancing and having fun, all set to the tune of "DuHast" by Rammstein. Unfortunately, through break-ups and hurt feelings and losing touch, our group didn't last. Some of us are still friends, but we won't ever have that wonderful dynamic we once shared, and some of us don't even speak anymore.

And this brings us to the present. I haven't yet been able to find a new group. I've got my friends, and some of us are like little mini-groups, but everyone is in different places and doing different things. We don't see each other much, and we certainly don't share a very strong sense of camraderie. It's usually just me hanging out with one other person.

Now, part of this is due to circumstances. For the first time, I'm not living in the bubble that is high school or a small college. It's harder to see people and keep in touch. Also for the first time in a long time, I don't have a guy to lean on. I don't have my built-in companion.

But I still find myself thinking about those old days when there was that feeling of togetherness.

I've never liked being alone. And now, when I should be out having fun as a single 23-year-old, I'm feeling more alone than ever.