What a strange thing to think that I am capable of change. That I have changed over time despite my feeling of always being static. That the nearly three and a half years of this diary chronicle change on so many different levels and even show the develop of a narrative voice, one that isn't necessarily too dissilimlar from my own speaking voice, though this voice is perhaps less truthful than I might wish.

On my very first entry I wrote:

I'm at a weird time in my life right now. The school year has two short weeks left (two short weeks in which I need to do an entire history independent study course...stupid me) and I can't believe that high school will be over, forever. I'm both sad and glad about it; I have a lot of memories I wouldn't trade for the world but I also have a lot of regrets about various things. Though certainly nothing I can't live with. I'm going to be cutting a lot of ties in the next few months and I'm worried about whether or not I can handle it all.

And this is me two years ago:

I've been doing a lot of thinking today. I shouldn't think. When I think, I get melancholy. Today's revelation? I am lonely. Everything in my life right now--work, the people there, trivia, my family, my 'friends'--is just a lot of meaningless noise that prevents me from thinking too much. I hate feeling this way, but I do. I smile, I laugh, I make jokes (usually bad, punish ones)...and none of it means anything. At the end of the day, I feel mostly empty. I don't feel like there are people out there who think about me and wonder how I am and what I'm feeling.

And me a year ago:

Because at the rate I'm going I don't know if I can. I want out, pronto. I want out, but I also realize that there is no way out. Not for me. Not now. NOt unless I take off to Mexico and freedom...but Mexico wouldn't be the same by myself, and no one will come with me.

Maybe what I lack is the courage to make my own decision to stand proudly on my own two feet and say "this is what I think. this is what I believe. this is what I thought you said. and I'm sorry if things got misconstrued somewhere, but I'm not going to take this anymore." It's a little sad how many situations in my life I could apply that to right now. Gee, I wonder how many veiled metaphors I can use in this entry. And why I bother to use them at all, since I have nothing to hide from anyone who reads this.

Okay, so maybe I haven't changed that much. But at the same time I have in some unqualifiable way that's hard to express right now. I can stand up for myself. I can wear my glasses all the time and not feel like a loser. I can talk to people I don't know. I can make conversation with strangers. I can do things that make me uncomfortable and hide that fact pretty well. I can lie with a straight face.

Wait, I guess I could always do that.

But even the things I never thought would change have. Love and friendship are two of the biggest, I think. Love always seems like it will be such a constant, for-ever-for-sure thing, and yet I've been in love four times. Once with a boy I met only four times, but who asked me to marry him and calmed me down from my fear of flying as we flew above the Atlantic.

Once with my ex. I think. It's hard to say, because that love will always be tainted by the poison of our breakup, of bitter recriminations and such, both truth and lies. And I'm glad it's over because it was so bad for me.

And then there's the secret love. But that's over and done with, and in the end I don't know if that one was worth it because I think it cost me a friendship I value far too much.

And of course, Mike. He is good for me in ways that none of the others were. He is good for me in the ways that I need. I adore him. But who knows how things will work out with him. The odds are against it. No matter where I end up next year, we still won't be together physically, and he is unwilling to uproot himself to come be with me. Which I can understand, because I'll only be wherever I am for a year (though possibly more). But as he gets deeper and deeper into the world of work and I get deeper and deeper into the world of academia, we are less likely to end up in the same place. If I'm a prof, I have to work somewhere where there is work for me...and there isn't in the area where he lives right now.

So someday there might be even more change, and I will probably not notice it, until the day I can look in the mirror and see an entirely different face.

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