Cooling Of The Embers

I don't know where the time in this past month has gone, let alone most of this year.  I've been busy of late; changing my routine, feeling out of control, learning very new things and meeting new people.  My state of introspection has seemed to come into its own lately, but I can't really tell whether it's the building or the changing of it within me or just something plain new.  Introspection is a strange thing.  It makes you only as lonely as you'll let yourself be.  For a long time I was worried I would never get back the enjoyment and solace I seek in being by myself, in enjoying my own company, but it's returned and it's stronger than ever.  No longer do I lust the company of someone to know every single thought in my mind, or to be able to predict my existence.  The nicest feeling I have is that I am working on the best version of myself; my days are carefully planned, I spend my time with people who make me feel happy and who I genuinely care about.  Of course the downside of being so busy, as usual, is that I haven't been able to create in the capacity I wish I could.  For all the time I spend around creative people, the spirit-crushing tasks I am assigned and the eternal blank stare deep into a computer screen don't do wonders for a daydreamer.  The closest I've got recently is the stack of yellow sticky notes jotted with ideas.  Today I even realised that I haven't been carrying around my blank notebook for weeks; I don't know what's happened but I'm sad that it took me so long to realise.  It's not entirely all horrible though, because in that stack of yellow sticky notes is a reflection of my life nonetheless.  "I'm scared I don't know how to romanticise or idealise anymore, and that's what I liked about us the most," I penned two months ago.  I'm glad to say I don't feel like that anymore, and if this ramble of a blog post signifies anything it's that I'm as idealistic as ever.  That 'us' no longer exists because disappointment is a word that carries so much weight to it, it doesn't really have much feeling anymore. Now I'm on the precipice of finishing my undergraduate degree and not knowing what is going to happen with anything, and this is what makes me scared.  It's not paralysing, but just enough to be in the back of my mind.  Sometimes I think back to when the year started and all the intentions I had for it, and comparing it to what it is now, it's hard not to think that this - right now - shouldn't be how it is.  I didn't have to convince myself of this at the time though, I believed every bit of it; really hard, evidently.  I'm now trying as hard as I can to keep learning, to speak up when I need to, but as my path diverges so does that of everyone else I know, and then that feeling of loneliness resurfaces.  On Thursday I spent my last day of class with the person I met on my first day of university, three years ago.  He is my greatest friend I have made in this time and a person who I cannot articulate my level of respect for in words. We visited the places on campus that meant a lot to our friendship and relived all the things to have happened since then.  Sometimes it upsets me that our friendship isn't the same as what it used to be; not in its closeness, but in the fact that we've both grown up, that people have entered and disappeared from both our lives, and just simply that time has changed things.  Our lives are both so different, and sometimes it's hard to ignore the feeling that this is going to become more pronounced with everyone I know in the immediate future.  At the moment most of my days are quiet, but it's not a bad quiet.  It's just making sure I'm anchored safely while everything moves around me.