I have been in a funk since mid-November. The scary thing is that, in many ways, I didn’t realize how out of it I’ve felt until today. That’s because today, after 5 months, my best friend, Eva, finally signed online and spoke to me again. Eva is from Spain, and since we met three years ago while I was studying abroad in Granada, she has been a source of stability and friendship for me. Suddenly, in late October, she stopped answering my calls, and so began a long period of time during which I always felt slightly unhappy and off-center.

It turns out that Eva was going through a tough time, but that’s not the point: she was ignoring my calls, my emails, my letters, all of which resulted in a feeling of isolation and rejection.  I am a very caring person, and my friends mean a lot to me, but I have also been badly hurt by several people and I couldn’t believe that Eva–someone I thought would always be my friend–was hurting me, too.  And then today she signed online and we spoke, however briefly.  The conversation was odd, and not entirely satisfying, but after it was over I felt like a fog had been lifted from my brain.  It suddenly struck me how much the situation had been bothering, and the extent to which I had allowed it to fester inside me and negatively impact the rest of my life. I don’t know what will come of the friendship now.  It seems like, little by little, she will regain my trust, and things will return to normal.  But suddenly I feel eager to get back to being myself: happy, energetic, passionate, idealistic.  I want to continue working on all my projects; start riding the bike again (something I’ve done very little of since the weather turned cold); and in general go outside and share my kindness and my bliss with the world. It’s difficult to understand why certain events affect us greatly, while others not at all, but next time I need to identify situations like the one with Eva much sooner, and take immediate action to ensure that I don’t compromise my happiness just because someone is in a weird place in their life.  Now that I feel myself again, all I want to do is return to living life the way I did before all this began.  I can’t get over how hurt and isolated I have felt.  I now feel re-connected to things.  I had forgotten about so many beautiful things simply because I was focused on a single ugly aspect of my life. Oh well, just another thing to learn from. . .