Rusty

I'm a rusty writer these days. I struggle just to get down basic details, nevermind paint a beautiful picture with the English language. I am reading more, however, which is always a good start. Time and time again I hear writers proclaim that you can only write if you read -- there is no other way.

I'll admit -- this was easier on livejournal. I could talk about anything. There was that handy litle setting that let me control who could see the entries and who couldn't. So if Philip was the only person I trusted with the information, he was the only one that could see it. If I was frustrated about something in the sorority but didn't want anyone in the sorority to hear me vent in a public forum, I would pick all my friends with livejournal accounts who weren't in the sorority. The main point is that there was always a way to limit who would see it.

I don't have that here, which is good. If I can't write something that everyone can see, then I'm not really much of a writer. It requires backbone, really, being honest with anyone who happens to come by here and read this. And even if this post is so rudimentary in thought that I will look back on it in 2 years and groan, I should make it anyway. This is what I'm thinking about; this is what I'm trying to break through.

I've noticed that friendships for me do not last forever. They do not end in proverbial flames or gigantic fights; my groups of friends just shift. One day I look up and everything is different. I've noticed I seem to be hitting that 4-year mark again. Some friendships have already changed. There is hope, I suppose, in the fact that I've always managed to find friends, that I meet new people when other people leave my life. Cycles can be comforting; the idea that you've been here before and you'll be here again. A strange coming home. There was a quote I found once, something about history repeating itself over again and again. I would insert it here if I remebered who said it or the particular phrasing. I think the main difference between this quote and others with similar sentiment is that it wasn't a negative thought. It wasn't James Joyce....

Sometimes I just wish life didn't have to change this drastically. But some remain. I don't lose all my friends. It just bothers me that there is a cycle, as if it is something controlled.

Tristan & Isolde is on tv at the moment -- I realize I rented it a long time ago but never finished it. I would imagine there is a sad ending involved. Good love stories are exquisite but rarely happy; their beauty brightened by loss or sadness. Would love stories be told so often if they were all happy?

I wonder what I would have been like several centuries ago, if I would have been a submissive, obeying woman. Would I have been forced to marry a man I didn't love? Would I have a had a tragic or happy love story? Would I have felt the need to follow the conventions of society? Would I have cared what they were?

Silly questions, I suppose. But they're what I think of when I watch this movie.