For someone so emotional, I am surprisingly incapable of dealing with emotion in others, and for someone who needs human contact so desperately, I am astonishingly bad at reaching out to people. Bah, me.

Tonight before band rehearsal, we had a big snowball fight. It was the first time all season that we have had snow sticky enough to do that with. It was deliciously spontaneous. In the middle of rehearsal, we had a break, and I just stood to the side and watched all these people that I care about chatting amongst themselves, playing their instruments, playing other people's instruments (mostly of the percussion variety), juggling in the corner... and it was one of those moments that I am utterly incapable of putting into words, but brought me such joy somehow, inexplicably.

Sometimes I find it frustrating that anything I can say in words about a moment that meant a lot to me is still only the faintest echo of the experience itself. But maybe better than to describe the moment is to live the moment. If someone thinks that their words can fully describe something they have experienced, maybe it is because they have not lived that experience fully enough to realize how unique it is, and how impossible to reproduce. (Or maybe they've just found the most amazing language ever to describe it in.)

There are so many people to whom I'd like to say: You are a wonderful person. Don't be so hard on yourself because you are single, because you don't seem to hook up with people at the Jug the way everyone else does, because you feel like the human race has for some reason rejected you. You are an immensely worthwhile human being, and if I can see that, surely someone else is bound to come along who will also see that. Just... have patience. And don't give up on yourself, or on other people. You matter too much for that. Despite what our world tells us, you have value on your own, as an individual person, and I can see that, and so should you.

And I know already that they will say: You are very kind, but what do you know about it, you who have been dating so-and-so for two years, you who have never been alone since college began, how can you possibly understand how hard and frustrating this game is, the long waiting, the loneliness? You can't possibly know.

And I would say, you are right, but it was not always this way with me, and maybe I do not forget so quickly where I have come from.

And I know in the end that all my words would be meaningless to them, but still I wish I could say these things and somehow show them that it's true.

earlier -- later