"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

Man oh man.

First of all, I had a much-needed and relaxing weekend at Kelli's house in Angola. There was a lot of beer, a lot of catching up, and a lot of dirty sarcasm. It's always so good to see Kelli and Chuck... I'm not sure if they both know how much I miss them being here. But really... nothing's as good as when Kelli and I get to watch Chuck and Phil get extremely competitive and pissed off over stupid games like pool and ping pong... and Mortal Kombat 3... and The Gun Game... and the Indy Racer USA game at which I beat the pants off everyone :). If nothing else, the weekend was at the very least entertaining, thanks to the 70-year-old woman dancing low and dirty at the bar... she sure showed us a thing or two.

Anyway, on to more pressing matters. This is going to be a venting post, so if you're not into that sort of thing, you should probably just click the X in the right hand corner (or the box in the left hand corner, for our friendly Mac users).

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend tonight in which I found out some even more interesting information about a mutual friend of ours. I have no reason to not trust this person to whom I was speaking, and so I feel confident in taking the bulk of what was said to heart.

You think you know a person, you know?? I mean, really know someone. I've been friends with this person (the mutual friend we were discussing) for a very long time, and we have what I consider to be an amazing friendship. He is someone with whom I am very close, and I think I probably know him better than he knows himself, and vice versa. This wonderful friendship was based on trust and because we both feel completely comfortable with one another, which makes it very easy to be honest... which I have spent years of my life confidently thinking we were both being... until tonight, when I found out he has been withholding very important details of his life from me. I mean... okay. I completely understand that there are some things that honestly no one knows about you. I have a safely hidden vault filled with dirty little secrets, too... but they're not anything person-altering... they're not anything that would change the way that someone-- my best friend-- would see me.

I'm starting to realize that this is going to be very hard to write about without naming names and situations, which is something I'm definitely not going to do, so I'll just generalize a little bit longer. Bear with me... I need to get this out. I'm a little (lot) upset.

Friendships are very important to me. I used to get sad because I'm not a person to whom people flock-- I've never had the royal subjects of "friends" that "popular" people do... I've never had a train of followers constantly trailing behind me, dictating what their own lives are worth through my actions and reactions. For a long time, I used to think that acheiving that status was the only path to happiness. Now, older and a lot more mature, I realize that that's not even something I want to think about. I love being the person who has a handful of extremely amazing, utterly fantastic, and incredibly wonderful real, life-long friends, rather than the person who has a gaggle of clones and worshippers tripping over themselves to get a closer look. But because I place so much importance on my friendships, it's not uncommon for me to be very hurt when I realize that someone into whom I've invested a lot of heart, time, and feeling does not return the sentiment as whole heartedly as I offer it. Or pretends to return it... lies about returning it.

What I'm getting at is that since the end of the conversation,I've found myself-- against my will-- reevaluating my friendship with the person about whom we were speaking. I love him so much, and the fact that I love him is not in jeopardy... but the idea that he's been keeping something from me for so long and intentionally lying to my face about it is really almost pushing me over the edge. I don't want to let this come between us... everytime I find myself fuming over it, I think about all the good times we've had and all the laughs we've shared... but then I just get even madder when I think that while we were laughing about some stupid TV show and I had nothing on my mind other than how happy I was to simply be in his company, sitting on the same couch as he was, he was hiding something very important from me.

I know that I have my faults, too, like I said. One huge one is that I know I'm just going to bottle this up inside and never talk to him about it... I have a terrible tendancy to harbor ill or wary feelings rather than to throw them out in the open and talk about them... but, hey. That's what a blog is for, right? Especially a blog that I know he reads every day.

But, anyway, faults aside... when it comes down to it, I'm proud to at least be able to say that if I call someone my friend, it is not lightheartedly and I am not in it for a temporary ride. And I'm confident in the notion that, no matter how difficult, if I'm willing to call someone my friend then I also have to be willing to show my whole self to that person and not withhold anything that makes me who I am.

Maybe that's just me.