I miss...

My kohai. All of you. You know who you are, or you should - Jor-chan and Bren-chan and Ray and Turtle/CJ and Brandon and all of you, I fucking miss you okay? And I'm homesick as hell and I'm not acting like a reasonable human being because everyone is moving on and moving away and I'm trying to keep things together and sometimes I go insane because things are changing and I need them to be the same for my own selfish reasons, because I'm scared and I don't know what I'd do without you guys. I want to keep the status quo because it's safe and comfortable and I've been a huge bitch trying to hog all of you to myself. I miss you all and I want us all to stay together forever, even though I know that life doesn't work that way.

But even through all the changes, can't it work like that just once? Where nobody goes away to college and is never seen again, where nobody outgrows each other or loses touch? I'm holding on so tight I'm breaking things. I don't want to do that but I didn't even realize I was doing it until now. So if we grow, can it please be together?

I miss my old life. I want to go back to the way everything was way back when, when Ray livedjust fifteen minutes down the block and I could pop out on a Saturday afternoon to go see him, where Bren-chan would show up fifteen minutes late to my house because he forgot he said he was coming, and Ray the responsible one detoured him back on track - but I'd been panicking for twenty. Except it would be even better because Wresie would be there with us instead of five states away. Sometimes I have dreams like that. Where everything is back to being perfect. And I like my job and my new room and where I'm living but there's moments where I'd give my right arm to be back in Mom and Dad's apartment living on ramen and microwave meals and having friends drop by for impromptu Munchkin sessions and "Hey let's head down to that coffee shop in the music store" and "What are you doing this afternoon?"

Living with friends is different than I expected, too. Sometimes it feels like I talk to Angel less now that we're roomies than we did when all our contact was over the internet. I miss not having to worry about student loans and rent and hours and call times and whether or not my schedule was free when I wanted it to be. Money is nice and I can buy a lot of stuff, but the stuff doesn't make me happy the way those simple days did. And with everything breaking apart, and it feeling quite a lot sometimes like my fault, it makes me feel like I'll never feel that way again.

"Goodbye, Halcyon Days" indeed.

Y'know, when characters on TV grow up they always seem to get jobs in the same buildings, nobody ever moves away unless it's a plot point, nobody ever loses touch. I don't really know how to handle it and I wish someone would tell me, help me figure it out. I hate losing friends, whether due to inactivity or divine intervention or simple conflict of personality.

I remember when nobody on CR had even thought about what they'd do if drama happened on the site, when "Missing: One Best Friend" was enough to remind people of what was really important; I remember when life was easy and chores were hard and homework was something you did as little of as you possibly could to pass a class.

I wish Life were a multiple-choice test, not a short- or long-answer type. Maybe then I'd be able to pass.

I hurt, guys. It hurts. I miss my buddies, my kohai, my friends, my group, my nakama, my true companions, my way-more-than-five-man band.

I just wish things were back the way they used to be, but time always rolls forward, doesn't it my friends?