Passing Time on the mountain

Been an interesting couple of days. Highly internalized.

This morning, I said goodbye to a friend.

I don't know her history that well. I don't *really* even know her name. In a strange quirk about me, I tend to remember and think of people in terms of the manner I was introduced to them.

So, say, I meet someone online, and then get to know them, even after I know their real name, I tend to use their online name.  This is easy when people use both, but in the world of forums, one tends to rather quickly take on a special "moniker", your webnym, and that belongs to you.

Its stupid, I know, but I do it anyway.  I'm odd like that.

I had wanted to sorta kinda celebrate this passing for her -- her time on the mountain is over, and she's taking a rather large risk and actually crawling out into the world.

For nearly two months, she's been someone I could talk to.  Someone I could share things with -- talk about, listen, do the whole coffee thing.  Which I *get* now. And enjoy. And I will miss her very much.

Friendship is complicated. Friendship is something I give freely, openly, to all and sundry. I have friends I've only argued with online. I have friends who don't think of me as one.  I have friends that other people think are enemies of mine.

Friendship is free.

And, since I am heavily into the whole solitary thing, that seems to mean that friendships -- especially those which somehow help to validate things -- are important to me.

I like her.  She's funny, she's smart, she's amazing at times and in ways that are hard to describe. And I miss her.

So last night, I made a special shifting of my sleeping patterns to go over an see her, and she was gone.  But, later, I found what time she would be leaving this morning and made sure I said goodbye.

And now I've been freaking weepy all day.

Its a kind of mixed weepy, as well -- sadness and loss from her leaving, but also a bit of thrill and hope and excitement that I have to temper.

The second part is strange in light of the above, of course. But that's why its below.

I looked at my face today.

Probably seems odd to most people, I'd think, that doing so is noteworthy.  Near as I can tell, people look at themselves all the time. I do know that a lot of the time its to look at a *part*: hair, lips, ears, nose, eyes...

I looked at my whole face today.

I don't do that often. I've avoided it since I lost my hair and the first damage from sun and smoking and piss poor diet kicked in. I don't like it.  The nose is too big, the eyes seem hollow, the bald area on the top of it that offends me.

And I noted, as I looked at that face, that it was different.

I know it has to happen. Its part of the whole issue. But I wasn't prepared for it.

Because, I saw new things.  Things which weren't so bad.

Including the fact that the old bald was now simply very thin.

That was a shock. I knew that hairs had come in, and I had gotten excited when they did of course -- but that died soon because I knew they were just sorta pretend hairs.  Not real ones, and they wouldn't do much good. But it made me feel good.

And its been slow.  And they have been growing.

When I lost my hair (and I lost most of it in my early 20's) I was devastated.  They didn't have the things today, and it was well known that anything you ever did was going to be, well, worthless.

By the time they came out with them, I was too far gone, so, eh.

The other options were expensive, and secretive, and confined to late night infomercials.  And that money had more important uses at the time.

 

But I had changed.

And it looked better.  Not perfect -- my nose wasn't smaller or eyes less shadowed and cursed by dark circles I've had since I was 14.

but better.

And I could look at it.

right up until the tears blocked the view.

this, on the heels of the day before, wherein a top that I adore fit better.

Still growing there, but that also brought me to tears.

Its good stuff.  Slept with a silly grin on my face last night, that was only taken away by this morning.

I also noticed I need to seriously stick to my old routine for skin care.

And that when I get back home, some people are going to be rather shocked.  That's bad -- but, well, that's tough.

 

So good flight, my friend. Good flight, and good landing, and pleasant journey.

I miss you. And I am ever so glad to have met you. I'm a better person for having done so.