09 December, 2002 - 10:17 a.m.

a fellow diarylander (now blogger) once mentioned in an entry about how she would love the ability to lock all her friends up in a room with her and not let them out of her sight. I remember reading it, and going "I know exactly how she feels", and lately, I've felt this uncontrollable need to do the same thing.

I mean, I understand the whole "people and things change" theory. I can even appreciate the "nobody plans it that way, it just .. is" theory. But it still doesn't mean that that particular pill is any less bitter to swallow.

I spent some time with an old friend the other week. we used to be really close, and we would have seen or spoken at least every other day. these days it's a once or twice a month sort of thing, and although that saddens me sometimes, it's something that I've grown to accept, and I don't feel as bad about it as I did in the beginning.

one thing that is a lot harder to get over, though, is the fact that where once upon a time I knew pretty much everything about them and what was going on in their life, I now have next to no idea. he leaves for a 2½ week holiday in Europe next week, and if his friend hadn't have told me, I doubt I would've known at all. or even smaller things, like how he wears contacts now instead of glasses.

or another friend of mine who I saw recently, and I walked into her bedroom after several months of not seeing her, and how it had completely transformed. the room decor that I had grown to know and feel so comfortable around was now so different that it felt like I had stepped into some parallel universe. and as she and I continued to talk, I realised that not only had the room changed - but the room's owner had, too. not in a bad way, but just the fact that she had left me feeling rather unsettled.

but upon reflection, maybe this ideal that I have that the things and people that you care about shouldn't change ever, needs to come to a halt.

if I'm really truthful about it, I know I've changed too. in some ways it's dead obvious, and in other little ways, not so much. the point is that although I've known for ages that you can't stop things from changing .. that it is, as the saying goes, inevitable .. the irrational, childish part of me still wants the impossible.

I want those moments when you let out a little contented sigh to last. I want those late night hours when you stay up with your best friend and do nothing but talk in the dark to last for a week. I want that half an hour's worth of tv show that you sit on the couch and share with that special someone to go on for a decade. I want that stretch of road that you drive along with your favourite song on the radio playing loudly to go on for hundreds of miles as you race along with the top down.

.. but I guess that's all an entirely different matter. in direct context with this entry, I guess what I mean is that I just want the people close to me to know what's going on in my life - and I, theirs.