We tend to measure our happiness by certain standards set up by other people and society in general and we compare the quality of our lives with other people’s lives. Seeing happy, satisfied people doesn’t make us feel good if we don’t already. On the contrary! I can’t say it makes us jealous, but rather sad because we don’t have something somebody else does.

If everyone around me is happy it will remind me just how sad and lonely I am. I happen to think a lot of people are more satisfied with their lives than I have ever been. And, truth to be told, if I didn’t know what all there is to it I would never feel bad about mine. There are so many interesting lives out there, so many different stories I would like to be a part of, even just for a little while. I just need to get away from everything. And that feeling is growing stronger everyday for the past couple of years, that I am afraid I will actually do something “stupid” in order to set myself free from these boundaries.

I know we ought to accept the things we cannot change and we shall have courage to change the ones we can, but what if the difference between the two is too tiny to make a clear judgment? Or what if you know something can be changed but you just can’t risk doing anything about it or you don’t know how or where to start?

My depression never had an obvious reason, it’s just a dark feeling of everything crashing and falling apart, that seems to come and go just like that.

Someone once told me that life is supposed to be more than a sum of its pieces. I am having trouble seeing the whole thing, life has always been too divided to make any connection between all the different parts. As I grow older, it’s getting more and more differentiated, so much that I forget about the beginning and wonder if I’m still in the same book. It seems to me that everything is changing as I go through different chapters, the story, the characters, the mood…everything! Almost like the only thing that always stays and never changes is myself. Or is even that true?

It’s sad to think that, at one point in time, all this I’m going through right now will stay in the past, including the story and all its characters. In the end, there will be so many chapters that it will be hard to sum them up into something meaningful. Or is there a bigger picture at all?

Someone once told me I am not supposed to mix social circles. And really, who wants to see the same old characters in a new, completely different story, interfering with all the new characters, right? Those chapters are meant to stay separated, cause each had its own conclusion.

I don’t like the endings, conclusions always make me sad, and some chapters are too short to enjoy them especially when you know that they will certainly end, it’s a just a matter of time. Sometimes I feel like bringing the old chapters back. Sometimes I feel like making a new story with the old characters. Sometimes I just feel a need to connect everything and make it more meaningful that way, even though I know it can never work out. I still try, sometimes, but life stays nothing more than a sum of all the different pieces…

I am wondering what happened with the good old times, with all the innocent dreams, silly enthusiasm and childhood purity, with all the realness of our own worlds. The time was back in the primary school, and there were four of us: My best girl friend (if I’ve ever had one, that was her). She was a poet and a dreamy person, with all the good and the bad things that go with it. There were these two guys - funny, charming, with crazy ideas, wild dreams and stubborn determinism to change this world… And there was me. If someone told me back then that it was the best that it can get I wouldn’t believe them. But it was.

I remember sunny days in the school yard, breezy afternoons, the smell of spring and taste of our moms’ sandwiches. I remember waiting on this girl to go to class together even though school was only ten minutes away (and sometimes I would end up waiting just as much), and then going back home together, all four of us, and talking outside of our homes for hours. I remember endless rehearsals we cursed (we were all into acting, one way or the other), and staying in the library after class was just tiring, but needless to say, now I know, those were the best moments in my life…I don’t remember anything else in that world but us, nothing else just didn’t seem to be as important.

It never was that way again. It all ended right there, after primary school. One of the guys left Serbia after being my best friend for eight years, girl choose a different high school and the other guy was my seatmate for four long years of my high school. But it was never the same. We didn’t even hang out anymore. Maybe we didn’t want to because there were three of us, maybe it just couldn’t happen, or maybe we grew older and began thinking about other, more important things. Another four years passed, the three of us are now in Belgrade, studying different things, I get to see the guy every now and then, I don’t remember the last time I heard from the girl, and that guy that left Serbia… well I just found him on facebook and exchanged a couple of emails. It’s weird, distant, nostalgic.

Strange are the ways of life…

I changed after he left, after it ended. I changed a lot. I’ve never had a friend, the way I had them, again. I don’t think I am capable of feeling as happy as I was back in primary school, with all four of us together. It’s like a chapter of my life abruptly ended and a totally new one began. The sun has set long ago in my world and the skies became gloomy. Now I can only hope it doesn’t rain all day.. Although, most of the times, it does.

I think I might be selfish… I don’t like nor understand the attitude I have towards some things and some people. And yet, even though I can’t explain why or find any reason at all for my behaviour I keep acting that way.

The thing is, I am afraid of losing people I care about as I know how hard it is to find the worthy ones. And seeing how, unlike many other people, I don’t make friends all the easily, I like to keep the ones I have by me at all times. The problem arises when I am not able to do just that, and it happens more often every day. We all have our own paths to follow and they often lead us in all the different directions and as the time goes by, you lose track of who went where. It gets harder to keep in touch and eventually, one way or the other, without even noticing, you lose it completely. By that time, you have already replaced your old friend you used to hang out with, with the new one and you don’t even think about your old friend anymore.

I guess I like to remember things when they were still good and so when our paths are parting I don’t even try to keep in touch at all. If the other side doesn’t make much (or any) effort either it’s even easier to do so. When there is no contact, it’s easier to let go and forget, and you know you’re bound to let go…

I feel that’s wrong and immature, and I wish I could change that about me, I wish I could be less selfish and make peace with people choosing their own life path whether or not it’s a part of mine. I shouldn’t feel sad about it, I shouldn’t give up on those people, I shouldn’t feel disappointed, or mad at all. But I am all that and I can’t seem to do anything about it.

it happened a couple of times to me now, and I still have a chance to fix it, but I just can’t make myself do it, I feel too guilty for acting this way… After all, it seems like it is not easier to just let go because you can’t erase your memories.