Q

The weather and i have drawn ourselves into a parallel: peaceful and comfortable; not without its occasional bouts of insane winds but nothing that’ll topple me over where i am; in general sunny – the way i like it.

This is an update post, it will have no actual point but i will attempt to establish a unifying theme.

Doing this because i find myself, with age, increasingly discriminating especially in regards to reading and writing.

I used to read with complete abandon, devouring indiscriminately whatever wasn’t beyond the reach of my maws. Your diet doesn’t matter before sixteen, i like to think – so absolutely no regrets in my unhealthy consumption of literature great, bad, and downright awful. Later in life i find myself spending more time choosing what to read than actually reading. With whatever time i have i want to read something not merely halfway decent but WORTH IT. Explains my severely malnourished pantry of reads in recent years. Depressing, but not particularly worrying because i’m much too addicted to reading to ever quit.

Writing, on the other hand, requires not just time/effort but also that extraspecialspicysecretingredient chemical X that loves visiting at the most inopportune moments. The pockets of free time i have to write, i’m completely stuck. I stare at my screen and type-delete-type-delete, save draft, save it along with my rather prolific stash of half-done broken paragraphs and lonely sentences. I’m sorry. Typically, this post itself would have been flushed down along with my Prolific Stash, because this is Not one of my writing moments – and unless i write my best i’d rather not at all (yes i’m a closet Type A).

But today i came across a quote on Facebook i loved:

For the past two days, met up with old friends.

PW group meeting with JT, BK and YQ. How is it that everyone is grown up but still the same? I find so much comfort in that – the fundamental stability of traits i’ve come to depend on in my friends. Those undefinable, complex traits i’ve taken two years to slowly learn and can never unlearn or explicitly explain. YQ asked in his classic YQ fashion if five years later we’d still bother to keep in contact. I answered yes and really meant it. YQ’s serious-flippant respond is irrelevant here, i just want very much to remind myself that yes i want to still be in the lives of all the friends i’ve made in that time of my life.

Yesterday had dinner with D, Manda and JR. Debbie and i had time together before everyone else arrived, reminded of those hours and hours we spent before during and after school. How did we have so much time? The ease of our conversations and those spaces between words we save on because we already know what each other are thinking… those are also things i’ve picked up through my years with D and cannot possibly unlearn, am grateful to know that.