everybody's changing, and i don't feel the same

i go months sitting on facebook 24/7 followed by months when i barely open the site. i am currently in one of my facebook lulls, but this morning i decided to go on and make sure i havent been missing out on anything major happening in anyone's lives. i wasnt. but looking at some of the things that popped up on my homepage about highschool friends - wall posts, notes, pictures - i realized how much i wouldnt fit in with them anymore. if i had met them for the first time right now, i doubt we'd make any lasting impression on each other. maybe one of us is growing up faster than the other. maybe being out of our tiny highschool has let us just be ourselves - a self that doesnt necessarily belong with the self we were back then. maybe we all just changed.

i know i've changed. a lot. but at the same time, i feel like i havent changed at all. i think one of the main changes was my switch from friends to family. i always liked my family... for the most part. but since i've graduated i've really come to appreciate them - from my immediate family to cousins, uncles, and aunts. lonerish as it might sound, they have become my closest friends (that doesnt mean i dont have moments when i wish i could go back to my younger self, scream 'i hate you' at the top of my lungs, stomp up the stairs, and slam my bedroom door to brood). i tend to blame one person for turning me off of the human race which led to my distancing myself from most people i know (mainly friends), but i'm sure it wouldve happened eventually. i'm coded for it. a friend and i used to make lists of people who would really truly miss us if we suddenly disappeared. if i made one of those lists now, it would contain mostly family, maybe a couple of friends. and i'm okay with that in a way i wouldnt have been before. my inability to complete a class presentation without turning into a flustered tomato has all but vanished. i no longer have the smallest shred of attention to spare on what people think of me. if i like me, that's all that matters. i refuse to try and be what people want me to be. i try to be a better everything: muslim, sister, daughter. i am more anxious about the future, less sure of where i will/want to end up. i don't like talking on the phone anymore. i have given up capital letters. but i still love to read, write, and let tv and movies rot my brains. i still prefer junk food to "good" food, baking to cooking. i still use sarcasm like it's going out of fashion. i'm still apathetic and lazy. my looks havent changed. i havent developed any major new hobbies, discovered any hidden talents. the basics have pretty much stayed the same.

on a different note, you know what word i find depressing?? almost. it mocks failures and belittles succeses. you almost made it. you almost didnt make it. we're almost there. when you succeed, when you fail... it's the almost that keeps you up at night thinking of the what if's. i'd rather miss by a landslide than almost get it right.

oh, and happy fourth of july!

*Everybody's Changing - Keane