August 16, 2002
could we start again, please?
The next time I talk to Sorcha, she'll be hours away at college.
It shouldn't really make a difference, since we do a majority of our communication online most of the time, but it will. I'll know that she isn't just a fifteen-minute drive away like she's always been for the three years plus we've known each other.
I'll probably still talk to her nearly every day, but I'll still miss her terribly. Distances are palpable that way. The knowledge that we won't be going out for cheap Mexican food after bells this week, won't be going to Borders or the movies or Target, won't be spending the night at each others' houses intending to write stuff but rarely actually doing so, it's there. The person who's been one of my closest friends in the world won't be close anymore, in a temporal sense at least.
The inevitable "what-if"s. What if we stop talking online? The communication just dwindles down to a thread and finally breaks off, because we have nothing to talk about, because our lives have gone in two different directions in two different places? What if she leaves and finds other friends, and I get replaced, because my online shadow can't compete with someone in flesh and blood realspace?
I know, intellectually, that it probably won't make a difference, shouldn't make a difference. I still talk to two of my friends that have moved away, one four years ago and one six, and the only friends I've really lost are the ones I grew away from. Surely if we can survive having gone to different schools for three years, this won't be a big deal. But I'm paranoid and insecure. So sue me. It takes me too long to make good friends for me to treat the possibility of losing one lightly.
It shouldn't really make a difference, since we do a majority of our communication online most of the time, but it will. I'll know that she isn't just a fifteen-minute drive away like she's always been for the three years plus we've known each other.
I'll probably still talk to her nearly every day, but I'll still miss her terribly. Distances are palpable that way. The knowledge that we won't be going out for cheap Mexican food after bells this week, won't be going to Borders or the movies or Target, won't be spending the night at each others' houses intending to write stuff but rarely actually doing so, it's there. The person who's been one of my closest friends in the world won't be close anymore, in a temporal sense at least.
The inevitable "what-if"s. What if we stop talking online? The communication just dwindles down to a thread and finally breaks off, because we have nothing to talk about, because our lives have gone in two different directions in two different places? What if she leaves and finds other friends, and I get replaced, because my online shadow can't compete with someone in flesh and blood realspace?
I know, intellectually, that it probably won't make a difference, shouldn't make a difference. I still talk to two of my friends that have moved away, one four years ago and one six, and the only friends I've really lost are the ones I grew away from. Surely if we can survive having gone to different schools for three years, this won't be a big deal. But I'm paranoid and insecure. So sue me. It takes me too long to make good friends for me to treat the possibility of losing one lightly.
# posted by Liadan @ 1:14 AM 
