I have so many things on my mind, so many things I want to write about, have been planning on writing about even, but this seems to be the only thing in which I can properly express myself.

John and I parted yesterday, agreeing that we would plan to see each other over the summer. It was the first time that we parted with embraces, and up to then, we had always left each other with verbal salutations. I realized that I started asking him for advice, a line I had never crossed with him before. Our minds generally don’t match. We may get along well (one may even say famously, in the superlative sense), but we also have different levels of tolerance, different goals, different worldviews, different strengths and weaknesses.

So what has changed? What has made me trust him in this now, when I haven’t in the past? I rarely heed his advice; it’s usually so completely different from what I’m thinking, and I almost never agree on the set of thoughts on which they’re based.

Perhaps this new-found trust is due to the fact that I’m slowly starting to understand a part of his mind that has baffled me in the past: a seemingly inherent evil. I felt like I couldn’t trust him, because I felt like nobody should trust him, and it became serious enough to make me question the foundation of our friendship.

At one point I started to distance myself from him, although later on (perhaps solely) due to the fact that it showed he actually cared about this, I started to trust him again. This made it a blind trust, because it wasn’t based on a train of thought of his that I could actually understand.

Now, I can more make sense of his words, his actions. Even with a liberal dose of some seemingly heartless, coldhearted comments (very broad), which even made me feel like a moral person, I trust him more than ever.

Why do these words come so easily?

Perhaps he can be viewed as a friend in the logical sense. He sees friendship as a sort of symbiosis, a mutually beneficial relationship. Although there are circumstances which he may find beneficial to disregard any sort of proper morals (such as a stab in the back for further gain), he also understands that following these morals and having strong relationships is much more beneficial in the long run.

He can’t be blamed for this approach to friendship. I’m starting to believe that there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, I’d probably completely believe in it, if my mind wasn’t so hesitant about admitting that I was very, very wrong, and very, very ignorant. I had always viewed it as a being his approach as being too cold for me to be comfortable with it all, but now, I realize that as long as it doesn’t get in the way of my own approach to friendship, there’s nothing that should make me uncomfortable.

And now, trust has solved everything.

I’ve been wallowing in my own chaotic
And insecure delusions.

I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in.
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I’ve endured within
my shadow.

Change is coming.
Now is my time.

—Tool, Forty Six & 2

I’ll be honest; I don’t talk like this in real life.

I’m not smart like John, who can sporadically use words like “emaciated” is his conversations. My entries need to be carefully thought out, sometimes taking days to write. I don’t talk to people about my sexual experiences, my personal problems, or any of the random shit that pops into my head because people don’t want to hear about any of that.

In fact, I’m very unlike this in real life.

I don’t talk about what I want with people, because I find that most don’t care. Most just wait for their turn to speak, and when they listen, they don’t understand.

In everyday life, one has to be careful about what one says. Here, I express what I want because this is one of the few places that I don’t have to give a fuck what anyone else thinks. This is within reason, of course, because there are things which may involve other people that I have no right to talk about. Anything else is free game. I don’t care if someone thinks I’m stupid, finds me offensive, or even thinks that I’m boring.

It feels good to know that I have a place where I can be myself, express what I want, when I want. It makes me stronger. It brings me comfort. It actually makes me more confident about saying certain things, and makes me unashamed of my emotions.

I’m not myself when I’m around most.

This is me.

Beth. Mysterions. Scratches, beats, drum rolls.

It’s funny. Sometimes I read confessions on group hug and someone will be going on about how they have this problem, but they can’t tell anyone because no one would understand. Almost every time, no matter what it is, my first reaction is to roll my eyes and think to myself, “Trust me, you probably know someone who understands”.

And then I realize that this isn’t true, because it isn’t true for me. There are quite a few things that I feel like I can’t tell my friends. Not because I’d be afraid of losing them over it, but because none of them have had the same experiences as me, thus rendering unable to help.

John is usually the first person I’ll tell my problems to because I’m most comfortable with him. I’ve known him for more than half my life, and he’s as fallible as me. I also have a lot more shit on him than he does on me (how do I keep John loyal…blackmail, hah). But generally I don’t want to tell him about my problems because he doesn’t think like me at all.

Pat is the person I’d most want to tell things to, simply because he has too much good in his heart and knows me well enough that I couldn’t possibly say or do anything to make him angry. Yet he’s the last person I end up going to for help or advice, just because he’s so busy. Sometimes I’ll tell Aaron and Trolley, but I don’t linger on things too long for fear of boring them.

I mean, what’s the point of telling someone who doesn’t think the same way or hasn’t been in the same situation? It’s not like they don’t care, they just actually don’t understand, so what could they possibly do to help (aside from direct involvement if the option is there, but if the option is there it wouldn’t be a problem). Sometimes, the most that a friend can do is lend an ear.

Sometimes it’s enough. Otherwise, there’s this.

My own, personal group hug.

If there was ever a time for John to put a contract on me, it would be now. Due to an unfortunate incident, he’s had to liquidate everything he has, take out tuition insurance, and assume a non-managerial position at Canadian Tire so that he doesn’t have too much money.

This is the guy who got accepted to UCC, got accepted to University College at the University of Toronto, finished his LSATs, and is waiting to get accepted to a law school. I also put his name down as the beneficiary on my assurance plan at work, so he’ll be receiving roughly $__k in the event of my death. I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell him, since I wouldn’t put a contract murder past him, but I figured that I couldn’t trust ANYONE in the world if I couldn’t trust him.

“I won’t whack you, no matter how much sense it seems to make”, he reassures me.

I don’t know why I didn’t figure this out before, but I guess the good thing is that I know better now. Maybe it was all too simple to see.

Friendship is all or nothing. Friends are the all, the ones I’d give my life for, the ones that I unconditionally accept. Non-friends are the nothing, the ones I couldn’t care less about. The ones that don’t fit in either category, due to insufficient information to make such a decision, are acquaintances (and some remain acquaintances forever).

Unconditional acceptance is the toughest part of friendship, because it’s the biggest commitment. It’s the biggest reason that I consider such few people to be my friends. It’s so easy to walk away when people change, when people grow apart. It’s not so easy to accept and understand, especially for someone as selfish and with as little tolerance as me. A friend is a friend for life.

I love you, Aaron.

I love you, Darren.

I love you, John.

I love you, Pat.