``I fall in love too easily,'' said Rerun van Pelt wistfully about the Jill-in-the-Box. Which comes to mind as someone who was my best friend in the late 80s and early 90s is, it turns out, getting married in two months, and it's almost certain that I won't be there. I didn't even hear about it from him directly. We never really broke off our friendship; just he sort of became my brothers' friend and then we didn't make an effort to see one another when I was home anymore, and somewhere along the line a bond dissolved. Fun enough guy, reasonably bright if deficient in judgement to wacky-sitcom-neighbour levels, could do a great Judge Doom impersonation.
That awareness that someone who used to be key in my life has moved on, and is apparently doing fine -- and I wish him all the happiness he can get -- leaves me feeling what I think is a taste of the Empty Nest Syndrome. It's the sense that a loved one has left, and he's better for it, and while you're both content enough you notice you don't need one another anymore. It's a horrid mix of hope and desolation and I'm sure either French or German has the exact word for it. Somehow the discovery this morning that an old friend I don't see much anymore has gotten her own Livejournal just heightened the feeling. There was a time we'd talk (online) daily, and I've only chatted with her briefly for years now, and while I'm hopeful to see more of her I'm aware there's a lot of experience lost.
The answer, of course, is that I have to stop focusing on decade-old faded friendships and pay attention to the people who I know and love, or could love, now. They deserve my full attention and I'm trying. But I wonder what the wedding will be like. When I met his fianceé I had the impression she was a Buggaloo, but there's surely more to her than that.
Trivia: Ludwig Schlafi, 1814-1895, proved that there are six regular polytopes (polyhedrons in higher dimensions) for four-dimensional space. Source: Platonic and Archimedean Solids, Daud Sutton.
Currently Reading: Second Front Now 1943, Walter Scott Dunn Jr.