I had the strangest dream last night.  In the dream, as well as incorporating a ridiculous amount of information from recent events,  up to and including stuff that only occurred an hour or so before I fell asleep, in the dream, I inceptioned, falling asleep within that dream,  where I had a really lovely and wonderful encounter with Liz. I mean, it was dream Liz but what was wonderful was that for a blissful long conversation, I didn't remember that she was dead. I remember knowing that she was sick, but we just had this super regular catch up. I told her about my life,  even though half.od what I told her was just stuff that only was happening in the dream world, like my trip to Western Australia. She told me she was going to see the raptors, to which I was like ... what? And she was like, oh yeah, the veleceraptors,  to which I was like,  cool. Then she asked to borrow my cool new leather pants (real) and i complained about missing half my belt and she lent me one. It was just really nice, the whole conversation, and so easy. We even argued fake dream economics about my flight to WA. And then I grabbed her diary and felt sad because I knew the last entry had actually been sad and an awful note to go out on really, except in the dream there were more recent entries. I still hadn't realised I was dreaming. The realization didn't come until we both went to Uni for two different reasons and once we were there,  she asked if she could come with.me for my thing instead and i said something like 'because your thing doesn't exist, right? Cos you're not actually here?' And then she was gone and it was very Sixth Sense, I see dead people, but not in a scary way, just in a sad way. But then in the dream the same thing happened to my Dad, which was a strange choice really, but we then went to dinner (initially a booking for three, just two once we realised) and talked about it and how nice it had been until we realised. Then I woke up in the dream and found myself in Lizzy bed and realised the reason I must have been adreaming about her was because I was sleeping on her sheets and smelling her while I slept, something that would make her feel more real.

Then after some more dream shenanigans I woke up for real, and then in the shower remembered that I'd dreamed of Liz and I wanted to write it down so I'd remember it for more than just today. It felt kind of real. Not that I think Liz appeared to me in a dream so we could chat fashion but if today I see a sign, we'll I'm not gonna ignore it. It felt like getting one more conversation and it was really special.

So, revelations of the day.

Firstly, that part of the reason why I am mad at Mia is because I'm angry at myself for not going after Ollie when I had the chance, and even though I don't want to now, she got something I didn't have the balls to try to get because she's a pretty brave chick and I wasn't. That's on me and I can't put that on her.

This means that what I was telling myself about her proving that she's prettier/funnier/more attractive/interesting/all-around-better-person than me by dating him is totally wrong. Not only because obviously no boy should have the power to 'prove' which of us is better, regardless of who he chooses personally. He's one person, and his opinion of me isn't important. And the second important part, who knows what would have happened if I'd actually gone after him. It's not like we held a contest where we showed ourselves off and then told him 'pick!'. I never took any extra steps, I never let on how I felt, and the big steps I took, while still awesome and like, go me, still weren't enough for me to say, I really put him in a position to choose me. So the insecurity I feel isn't legitimate and I think I can move past it now.

It was also pointed out to me that maybe one of the reasons Mia's boyfriend likes her is because she and I are similar. After all, we're best friends, we share a lot of the same values and sense of humour, likes and dislikes, goals. Obviously, if he likes her, he's also approving of a lot of stuff I have going for me. Rather than looking at it like Australia's Next Top Model where he's the judge and she and I are waiting to see which of us gets chosen, in like a 'yes, love it all' and 'ew get out' way, we're both great and the fact that he likes her is an indirect compliment to me too, really. Mia and I are great, of course people should like us. So the story I was telling myself wasn't necessarily accurate and while I'm not saying 'well if he likes her, then he should like me just as much!' but rather that firstly, we're more alike than different so even if he hated everything that made me different from Mia, he'd still be approving of most of me, and again, even if he hated everything that made us different, it doesn't mean that those differences are bad. It just means that he's more suited to her than me and there will be lots of boys in the future that are more suited to me. And in any case, I like the things that make me different to Mia, because I like who I am.

Also that there are a lot of reasons Mia has for the choice she made. Mia's confident, but she's not invincible and falling for someone new is a really nice, positive thing and I can imagine that being difficult to resist after a pretty rough few months. I've been dealing with Lizzy and I have been so busy and emotionally distant and teasing her about liking Jen more than her that I haven't been able to be there for her as much as I'd have liked to be. As much as I'd like to think I'm a perfect friend, I'm not. It's true, I don't think I'd do what she did, but maybe I would have. When she and Ben broke up, I had some thoughts re: ben that if I'd have acted on, would have been much worse than her starting to date Ollie. Maybe I would have acted on them if given the chance. So I can blame her, but not so much. Making really noble self sacrificing moves to save friends from hurt is difficult, especially if you can justify that hurt being minimal or subjective.

I think Mia has a possible multitude of reasons for dating Ollie. Firstly that she likes him, that he likes her and that it must be really nice to have someone there, who can be supportive and comforting and fun and exciting. When you're sad, I'm sure that's something that gets prioritised. Also, it must be quite validating to be able to start dating someone new, since Ben had a girlfriend and got over things much quicker than I imagine Mia expected. I imagine that was quite a blow to the ego, and while not a good reason to date someone, I wouldn't be surprised if that played a part. I'm also sure that she's still learning her way around the dating game and this was finally her chance to have something work. She had a bunch of pretty lame dates and one night stands, and Ollie comes with the validation of the fact that I thought he was worth dating. Assuming she values my opinion then it kind of makes sense to pick someone that has my seal of approval as a person, even though he didn't have my SOA as a potential date mate for her. I'm not saying that all this stuff absolves her from choosing to date him even though she knew I didn't approve and it hurt my feelings, but now that I'm figuring this stuff out about why it shouldn't hurt my feelings, perhaps it doesn't matter so much and I can get past it with all forgiven.

I'm also starting to recognise the other path I could have taken, instead of declaring us on a break, I could have just insisted on a long talk about it. Instead, we had a short, angry talk where I at least, was doing very little listening and a lot of just waiting for my turn to talk and then I left and came up with BREAK. Maybe I should have asked the hardest questions and really tried harder to understand. I think I didn't because I thought I already understood it all, and I didn't want to be swayed from my current path and opinion (basically that she was wrong and I was right to be angry).

Now? I think I'm going to go through the next week, and after that, I think I'll message her or call her  and organise dinner. I'll tell her all of this, and if she says the things that I need her to, whatever those things are, then we can be friends again and I'll happily listen to her about Ollie or anything that's going on for her.

I think I understand now that I have no reason to see Ollie wanting to date Mia as meaning anything negative about me. If that holds true, I have no reason to be uncomfortable or embarrassed by him and maybe then I can start being excited for the fact that she's dating someone who not only makes her happy but that I think is really nice.

Update time!

Things are going alright. It's been a really boring holiday period thus far. I really want to do things but I'm flying solo right now so it's really boring. My bffl and I are on a friendship break indefinitely, which is pretty lame. I mean, it's a break imposed by me, so I shouldn't complain too much but I do miss having her around to talk to, even if it's just messaging her something funny that happened each day on facebook.

It's okay, I mean, theoretically we'll just take a month, til mid August I suppose, and then I'll start talking to her again and we'll be friends. It's a super weird situation honestly. She's started dating the boy I was into about six months ago, and while I was over him, that wasn't really the point. It hurt my feelings and makes me super uncomfortable, for reasons I thought were pretty obvious, especially to her, since she's supposed to be an expert in my neuroses (and the fact that we discussed it multiple times over the last few months, that is wasn't at all okay with me), but as she is prone to do, she weighed up her feelings and mine and decided hers were more important. It's whatever. It's who she is.

When we talked about it (as in, I'd found out from another source and confronted her, making her admit it), she knew she'd done wrong by me and I thought I was okay with it, in a 'this sucks and I'm not happy but this is how it is, so may as well get on with it'. But then I said something really spiteful and (I think) out of character about her ex boyfriend and while it wasn't out of line really, I knew it would hurt her feelings and said it anyway so neither of us were winning the best friend game that day. I feel super guilty about it, but also frustrated because it took me from being in a position of moral righteousness to also being a shit friend.

The thing is, I'm really good at being there for people and not letting on that it bothers me. I'm not saying that I'm not a selfish person, but in a lot of ways, in matters of the heart at least, because I never think I'm worth it and I always assume that the other person is more worthy, I bend over backwards to help, even when it's not in my best interests. Like, I don't want to be there for Mia and listen to her excitement over however they got together, or deal with her angst over every little thing, whether good or bad. But if we're friends, I 100% would. Like as a duty of being a best friend, I would. I don't know how not to, because I don't know how to have those kinds of boundaries. Either I'm in something or I'm not. And what I fear, is that that leads to resentment and me being spiteful and saying things that are unkind.

So instead... break. My main reasoning was that I wanted to punish Mia somehow, to find some way to say, we're still friends and I still love you but you did something wrong and you hurt me, and I don't want to be passive aggressive about it, I want to say 'this is what you did, these are the consequences.' I mean, I don't know if that's what got through to her, or if I'm thinking of myself too highly to be like, the consequences are no Lucy for a month.

I didn't know what else to do. How do you punish someone that you love and still want to have a relationship with? I don't want to keep a running tally every time she does something awful and build up hurt and resentment and evidence that she's not a nice person, I want to forgive and then hopefully forget. But are you supposed to forgive people all the time, if they don't change their behaviour? Nothing I do will stop Mia from making this same choice every time. If I was to go back into the past and tell her this was the consequence, she'd still do it. If I told her it was him or me, she'd probably choose me, but obviously that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to be emotionally manipulative and say she can't do things otherwise I'm gone, but I feel like I'm justified to say that there are rules to friendship. When you break those rules, something changes.

In this case, the change does affect me equally, which is irritating but at least I have the power over it. There is something empowering about making a choice that does hurt you, but that changes something. I think it's really easy to just let someone make you feel small and sad but to accept that is has to be that way because you love that person too much to lose them completely over something hurtful, but in the long run, not a huge friendship ending issue. if Mia and I stop being friends, I want it to be because of something massive. I can't even think of what it would have to be. Not that I expect our friendship to end. She's my bffl, we aren't perfect but we love one another and get on too easily to mess it up. I don't think anything I've done this week is going to ruin that.

The other reasons I thought a break would work is that it means she and her boyfriend can have their merry little honeymoon period and I won't have to think about it or hear about it. And I can focus on other things and other friends.

Oh, the other reason that I thought it was a relatively empowering move is that I've been quite sad lately, thinking about my friendships as a triangle. Though now a very broken one. One dead, one on the other side of the world and one on a friendship break (who could have predicted that on the first of January 2015? Not me). I thought I wouldn't ever be able to react at all to Mia because she was my last remaining, close, intimate friend and I'm too much of a wuss to be alone. But not true. I'd rather be slightly more alone than be a pushover forever.

Besides, to be fair, I have a lot of close friends. Not close in that I see them all the time, but emotionally close. There are five people I could text or message right now, and say 'I need to talk' and they would stay up until 3am talking with me if I needed it. Half of them would probably come over. All of them would hang out in their next available free moment if I asked. I've never lacked intimacy with girl friends. And you-know-who probably. He'd stay up.

Another thing that's new as well recently is that I started to see a therapist about my problems. Not because I couldn't deal with them myself, but because help will get me better faster. One thing I was told today was to do this test which tells you what your strengths are. There are 24 all up, and it gives them to you in order. The advice I was given was this-- in your life, you shouldn't focus on bringing up the strengths you don't have, by doing things you hate. It's not about getting everyone to a certain minimum standard or benchmark, the way it is in school where everyone is forced to do a bit of everything. Instead, you focus on your top three strengths, the things that you do best and that bring you the most joy. This was a bit strange for me, because I always try hard to be very well rounded, but it's not saying that you shouldn't do the things that scare you, but that you shouldn't do the things you have tried and really know you don't like.

So, I did this quiz and my top strengths are (drumroll please)....

1) Creativity, ingenuity and originality.... which tbh I knew would be my first one, didn't need the quiz to tell me that.

2) Curiosity and interest in the world.... again, I guessed that one. I take a lot of personality tests, I know where I fit. The other very similar one to this, which I thought I might have third, but actually I got 6th, was love of learning. I think it makes sense that I got curiosity higher than love of learning. I much prefer to just know things, I like to be trusted with things, I like to have a mind boggling question and finding the answer, but I'm not so interested in everything, just because it exists. Jen reads non fiction for fun but I don't. I try, I buy the books, but I can only take history most of the time in stories. If they don't bring it to life, it's not very interesting to me.

3) Capacity to love and be loved.... I wasn't sure I'd get that one. I noticed it and was like... mmm yeah... that sounds like the Harry-Potter-will-defeat-Lord-Voldemort greatest strength that would probably apply to me. And voila, I love hard and I love intensely and I would be such a good fucking girlfriend because I love everything and apparently, I have a great capacity to be loved, however a test can measure that.

4) This one was super lame, but forgiveness and mercy. I think I got that one because I kept thinking about Mia and what a pushover I generally am, with all my forgiveness and endless capacity to give everyone a million chances. Honestly, I think this one needs to be moderated. I love people, even the ones that hurt me and while I don't think I'm going to be an abuse victim, you-know-who did teach me that I definitely know how to romanticise hurt and disregard for my feelings as signs of tragic love. I like to think that this strength is a benefit in moderation, when it's sensibly dolled out.

And last but not least, 5) Citizenship, teamwork and loyalty. Basically, I'm a good person. Not the most interesting, but I'm a team player, I do my fair share and I'm loyal.

I don't really know how you combine those into something useful and fruitful long term, like a career. I personally think the way is to become J K Rowling, by finding something that I find so curious about the world and the human condition and write something so endlessly fascinating and creative, that I get millions of fans and can spend my life connecting with people and being a source of good in the world. Voila.

Or teaching. Kids are curious, I'm creative and I'd get to form meaningful relationships with 25 kids each year.

I need to work out how psychology fits.

Anyway, good talk. Until next time.

It's been about ten weeks since Liz passed and I feel so confused about it.

Like, genuinely, confused is the only way I can describe it. I don't feel particularly sad about it. I could, I think, if I tried. Of course I understand that it is a very terrible thing and there is so much grief there, it's just that it's locked away somewhere I can't - or don't want- to access.

Now when I think about Liz not being there in years to come, it just doesn't feel real. It feels like she's just on a long trip somewhere, but she'll come back and then life will go on as normal. Because I don't feel sad, her being gone doesn't feel impactful, it's just like, yeah that's a thing.

My friend Orion and I were talking about her on the train the other night. Well, he was, he brought her up and I didn't know what to say. I told him I can discuss her completely emotionlessly. Who knows what he thinks of that, considering how important it was to me that he and everyone understood how desperately important to me she is as she was dying and after the funeral. It's just true though, I feel like I just took all the emotions out of dealing with her death. It only makes me uncomfortable when I have to say 'death'. I just tried taunting myself then, telling myself that she's dead and her body is in the ground and that freaks me out and if my mind didn't automatically shy away from all of that completely, I think that would make me feel something.

I don't know. Even when I got my dress for the funeral, it was when I was shopping with Jen for a friends birthday present and we just stopped in at the clothes store because she mentioned she needed a new black dress (in a 'every girl needs a little black dress' type way) and I was like, yeah I really need one too, for the funeral. That didn't make me sad, I just did it. Maybe I wanted to shock her a little bit when I said it because I wanted to talk, I don't know, I have no ability to deal with talking about Lizzy in an emotional way with other people. Not in real life. I could say, with no emotional investment, that I feel sad, but I couldn't feel sad while talking about feeling sad. It's like I'm too chilled out. I don't have a trigger to release all the bottled up feelings. I think of her because of a lot of random stuff but she still just feels so present, because I'm doing so many things that she did and loved, all my friends are people that she knew and that we talked about, so much of the gossip and drama is stuff that she was still around for, and the TV shows I watch are shows we watched together. When I condition my hair I remember conversations we had about conditioner, when I think about my hair I remember that she helped me dye mine, the only time I dyed it. When I think about a movie I just watched, I remember that we watched it together, a long time ago. When I listen to Hilary Duff's new album, I think about how many times I forced her to watch the Lizzy McGuire movies and how she must have known all the words to 'This is what dreams are made of'. When I stumbled upon Nikki Webster music, I cried because I remember her suffering through me watching DVD's of the music videos. She commented on all the fashion choices and because I knew nothing about fashion, I took everything she said as legit and never forgot. I remember going to the Easter show and listening to 'Never Been Kissed' on what must have been my Walkman, with her.

Her being really sick and dying feels like a dream, like a story.

I barely believe it, that's the problem.

Like I said, thinking about that just feels confusing because it doesn't seem real. It's like, why am I focusing all this mental attention on her, she's fine, you can just text her if you want to talk to her. Only I can't, and I haven't really worked that out yet, not deep down.

It's frustrating to feel like I'm not doing this right, that I'm both feeling too much and too little and in the wrong order. If I could just... I don't know... have a long cry and feel devastated for awhile, maybe that would help, but I cry all the time already. I've been to her grave. I wear her ribbons every day. I don't know how else to grieve to make things seem real. It doesn't matter what small choices I make, because it's all supposed to be in reaction to the ultimate thing, death of a loved one. I have to react, because I'm human but I only know how to react in human ways, with changes of behaviour, and no action is big enough or loud enough. Even killing myself doesn't seem like it would be a big enough gesture. Nothing I do feels like symbolism, it all just feels like one of the millions of small actions that we make every day. Move this limb here, perform this action, speak to this person, eat this, get through the day, it doesn't matter what action you take in the aftermath of a death, it's all still action, it's all still proof that while everything has changed, not everything has. You still go on. It should be a binary switch that when one person dies, everyone dies and all feelings, and hopes and behaviour ends.

Every act of behaviour I do, even the stuff that is supposed to commemorate her or express my devastation just feels like a tiny action in the face of the universe, that I'm belittling the sacrifice.

I can't explain it better. All actions just pale in comparison to dying and anything I could do would fall short.

I don't know what to do apart from keeping on keeping on, especially because as concerned as I am and as convinced as I am that the truth is in focusing on my feelings and whatever else I'm avoiding in my noggin, I don't want to do that. It's hard to explain but it feels so exhausting that I can't manage it, truly.

I've been thinking about what I've learnt this year. Though I remember the first of January as though it were yesterday, it is actually almost midyear and so, so much as happened.

The first thing that I think has been growing, not just the last six months but particularly now, is that I'm learning to be comfortable with being who I am, liking what I like, being annoyed by what I don't, without being ashamed of it. I mean, little things. I spent most of high school apologising for who I was, for what I liked, for as much as I tried to be myself, to stand up and say 'this is what I like' I don't think I ever managed to do with without apologising for it. I have always liked things intensely, and unfortunately for my thirteen year old self, or my nine year old self, I very rarely seemed to like the things other people thought were cool. I was obsessed with pink, pink anything. I loved fairies and when boys teased me about it, I'd be so defiant that I'd say they really existed and were 1000% real. I don't think I believed it but I've always had a problem backing down sometimes, when I feel ashamed. It's not the worst thing in the world to be I suppose, defiant. But defiance is only really positive if you believe it yourself-- that you really believe that what you like and enjoy and want isn't shameful and that no one has the right to tease you about it.

I wasn't popular ever because I liked the wrong things and was either too dumb or too smart to be able to pretend otherwise. Dumb because it really just never occurred to me to try, at any level beyond the superficial. When all the other girls had Bratz Dolls and I wished that I fitted in and could play too, I didn't ask my Mum for one. It really didn't occur to me. In a way that was because school and home always felt so separate that I'd forget, but also because I really thought Bratz were silly and I never really put effort into looking or dressing like someone who was popular in primary school, I just did me and never thought about it, not because I was particularly confident in that person, I just didn't know any other way.

It sounds like of contradictory but I don't mean it to be. I cared what people thought but I was so young, I hadn't really put together that you put effort into being someone else until they like you so I cared, and when I got teased, I got ashamed, but in my twelve year old way, I told them to go fuck themselves aka 'you're mean and stupid'.

In high school I had more confidence, because I had much better friends and I was very happy, but high school really isn't the place to foster self confidence because there is so much about fitting in, about being liked, about having friends and being thought of as pretty and funny and interesting because you're developing into the person that you feel like in your final form and if you do it wrong, you're terrified you're going to be a person that is wrong forever, that people won't like. Puberty is like waiting and seeing if you're going to be a butterfly and have all your dreams in life come true, or if all the flaws you suspected in yourself were going to stay long term and mean that you are going to have a shit life. All the single data points start creating a pattern, until you have labels like 'shy' 'introverted' 'not popular' 'not funny' and you think that's all you'll ever be.

But university, at least for me, it's given me time to build only the relationships that I want to build, to choose what interests me, to give myself labels that make me happy to be me and take a lot of the bad labels and shake them off and take away the shame. You can't accept yourself if you are ashamed that you like Taylor Swift, that you like pretty dresses and girls and red lipstick. You can't be ashamed that you are an introvert, but that you also like to drink and go out and party and if you can find the right friends and the right music and atmosphere and the right city, you'll just shine. High school makes you feel like you have to be one thing or another, even when you have to be both. You feel like you have to be innocent, but also sexy. You have to be intelligent, but you also have to be at parties on the weekend, you have to be goofing off in class, you have to be someone the boys like and have crushes on.

I learnt years ago now, but more and more every day that everyone is so much more complex than that. I spent so long trying to look so innocent that boys would find me sexy, to be a virgin but laugh hardest at dirty jokes, to be something more than I was because I couldn't choose which label I wanted and couldn't bear to give up either, lest I be judged or teased.

Now, when it comes to sex, I have no shame. I am who I am, and if that means I'm a virgin, so what? That's something I'm willing to stand by because this is my life, it's how I want to live it and it doesn't say anything else about who I am as a person except for someone who chooses for herself what she wants. When it comes to feminism, I don't hold back what I have to say. I don't keep it non threatening so that boys can joke about me being the resident feminist without being off put. Now, I'm still working on fighting for my opinions without nerves but I do it, and I'm confident that just because the other person isn't me, that they don't necessarily know better. I don't think that anyone else has things any more together than I do, that they have any more wisdom or ability to judge.

I think now, more than ever, I'm willing to fight for the right to say things like 'bae' and have that be respected, as no more right or wrong than anything else someone wants to say. I'm less willing to stand by bullshit social conventions that say be ashamed of liking silly things. The day I realised that no one else's music choices were better than mine were a revelation, it's all just music and the people that like it. No one can tell me that my heart and mind don't react more passionately to T Swift and Fall Out Boy than theirs reacts to Arctic Monkeys. I think some of the stuff I used to hate on principle was so dumb and that people that are still in that cynical judgemental stage of life still have so much to learn, to the point that I find them exhausting and wouldn't be friends with those people.

Not because there is anything wrong with them, I've definitely realised that it is a stage that people pretty much all go through, but once you're out of it, it's so freeing to let all that negativity go. I think this is where I meant to get to when I started typing out this post. I don't have as many friends as I did in high school. Well, fewer that I see often anyway. Even my close friends have drifted, for the most part. I'm almost at a crossroads, in that I've hit the point where I have changed so much without my friends changing with me that we almost don't fit together anymore. I don't know what that's going to mean. I mean, I'm not going to send anyone a 'sorry not sorry, our friendship is over, see you never' letters but some friends I'm worried that we don't have anything much in common anymore except for love for each other, and many happy memories.

Ever since I was five and I have my three best friends (first best friend, second best friend and third best friend, I've never been able to think about my friendships without some level of measurement, without some idea of where they stand around me, how close we are and who I like most. I don't think that's something that is particularly good, but unfortunately that's just who I am and how my brain organises itself. I feel very blessed with the friends I have. I consider a friend to be someone that I could message or text without it being like, a thing. Like, if it's about organising a car pool or something for an event, that doesn't count. But anyone who could send me a 'hey, what's up' text, they're a friend. Or maybe they're good friends and friends are people you would stop and say hi to if you saw them in public. I have actually gained quite a lot of those friends, that I could have a really awesome conversation with when we're together, but converting to the personal conversation and plans level is the hardest leap I think.

Oops, off topic. What I meant to say is that I've started having a lot more opinions about my friends than I did before, or just about people i know, and about which ones I really want to know. When I'm being myself, and that's something I think -- and hope-- is happening more and more, there are some things that make me really happy and things that are really boring or annoying and I think I'm at the point now of not doing things just to make other people happy. I'd rather just find people that enjoy doing the same stuff as me and have fun with them, you know? Because like, the thing is, you can talk to anyone, and have an okay time with anyone, old friends in particular, because you are really comfortable and know each other really well, but at what point is being an old friend not enough?

It still sounds like I'm trying to ditch my current friends.

No, what I mean is I think I'm at the point where I'm willing to be myself all the time, and I really just want to not censor myself for people who wouldn't like who I am now. I don't think that any friendship is worth it if you can't be yourself and be proud to do that.

Motivational speech of the day, you are welcome.

Whenever I see that I haven't updated my blog in nearly 2 months, I feel really guilty because I love my blog and want to keep it a record of my life. I'd feel more guilty if I hadn't written any posts in the last few months but I totally have, most of them were just posted for really short periods of time and then unpublished for whatever reason and now sit in my drafts.

I suppose that's because a lot of my posts have been about Jen lately and the girl checks my blog so its a bit of a weird situation there, in that she finds out things I haven't planned on telling her/ haven't told her yet. Like, when someone tells you something that upsets you, I think it is super normal and the right reaction to hide that, at least partially, so they don't get upset about upsetting you. Like, I'm learning to accept my Hufflepuff ways in that the most important thing to me is that other people are happy. I don't even mean that in a selfless way, I'm really not selfless, I'm hella selfish, but it's just easier to prioritise other people I think. Like, that's something you can control. If you get told something terrible, that will inevitably make you feel bad, that's out of your control, it's just a fact, but you can make it so no one else has to feel bad because of it. So like, of course I support all the decisions my friends make that I think will make them happy.

But I still like to blog about it with my feelings. Blogging is my outlet. Some philosophers theorise that we need language in order to have thought, because we think with words. I'm not saying that is necessarily true but I do think it allows us to think much more complexly. When I blog I take a lot of feelings that don't really lend themselves to intelligent conversation and I explain them with words, which allows me to then define them and understand them. The way I word things now is how I'll look back and remember them, once the feeling is gone.

Anyway, lets get on with the recount of my life for the last month and a half.

It's been... I don't know. I want to say really good, but I can just imagine like a smaller version of me on my shoulder giving me a '... really?Really bitch, you're gonna go with that? Really?' I mean, a lot of shitty stuff has happened, and exams are always hell and its been like a 'when you're going through hell, keep going' mentality tbh, but at the same time, I've seen a lot of good movies lately, like Jurassic World and Mad Max, I've watched a lot of TV series, like Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs (hell yeah british period dramas), I made the Grand Final of a debating competition (what the fuck, I know, I'm still in shock but it went so well omg), I had some hella gay moments with some hella pretty girls, I told Jen I was in love with her (hella brave, I am so proud of myself for expressing feelings), Mia and I are planning to go to Melbourne, exams are half over, my hair is growing long (I dreamed last night that it'd been cut off, I woke up, stared in the mirror, thought 'oh thank god' and fell back asleep), I've had some really nice meals out with friends, and lovely conversations, I've been making friends with people that I never was as close to in High School as I wanted to be, I even went back to Zumba last week and have been writing so much fanfic. Like, things could 1000% be worse.

Obviously the bad stuff has been exams, and Jen going, and feeling sad about Liz, and having a lot of confusing feelings about not wanting things to change, but feeling out of control because everything is changing, but I suppose that stuff isn't so bad. It's just hard to talk about. If any of you guys were quick enough to read my post about Jen going before Jen saw it and I took it down, you'd know my feelings there, even if they were brief and settled into resigned acceptance the next day. I don't miss her or anything. Like she's still around, even if it's online. Lizzy I still think about all the time and that's very confusing. I message her on facebook a lot. Like, I tell her jokes or I tell her that I got my skin checked for melanoma or I tell her about debating, or that I miss her. I don't know, whatever I feel like telling her. I wonder where her phone or laptop is now. I'd love to go online and see everyone that has been messaging her. Maybe just me but maybe not. Jack and I talk about her in a really chill way, like jokes about her being dead or we just are like 'fuck, Lizzy would be so helpful right now' or 'what the fuck liz, why did you keep every set of lecture slides for every subject since first year'. I think I like that we talk like that, because it's not sad. I mean, he is her brother, I can't imagine reacting like that if Tom died but maybe it's the only way we know how to face it.

I'm still not much of a fan of the way life just goes on. I don't feel angry at people for doing so, but I feel such grief sometimes, that Liz won't get to see season 5 of teen wolf, or know that Jon Snow got killed on Game of Thrones. She'll never know if Hilary Clinton becomes President, or  what the next fashion trend will be. She and I never discussed much about Jen as anything more than a friend but I know her reaction would have been amazing if she'd been around for that drama. She'd have loved it. Whenever I hear new music, I think fuck Liz might have loved this. And I hate that I've started to call her Liz, because I never did but now she's dead and I only talk to other people about her, not to her, and they all say Liz, it feels wrong but now i'm going to go the rest of my life calling her liz. I'll tell my children about her and I'll be so used to saying Liz that thats what I'll call her and that'll be her name in history.

I don't want to talk about the other stuff. You know it can just be mentally exhausting to talk about things that get you down. They get you down enough in your head that actually focusing extra time on them seems exhausting. I'll get to it one day I'm sure.

I feel so, so, so sad and upset.

My best friend Jen, who I am completely, ardently, in love with, she's going to the UK in like a week and a half and guess what, she's decided not to make it a holiday after all, and she's not going to come back.

God, I just can't believe it. Well, I can, but I don't want to. I'm not upset with her, it's her dream and it's what she wants but I'm just so sad for me because of my triangle of intimate friends, I have Mia, I have Jen and I had Liz. A month ago I lost Liz, and now I'm losing Jen. How can this be happening? What did I do to deserve this kind of karma?

And now I only have two more weeks of us living in the same country, after that odds are we'll never live in the same place ever again, unless I move to the UK too, and then choose a city based on where she is, and I don't want to be that person that follows. I just wish I had my own dreams and people who were willing to do what it took to make things work, rather than me always making plans based on other people's independent decisions.

I thought we had another six months before she was leaving. Five months wasn't enough. Everything with Jen was going better than it ever has, and we were hanging out all the time and it was always wonderful and unlike any other friendship I've ever had and now she's leaving and it's like, why let me see how good things could be if it was just going to be taken away immediately after?

I know some friendships only last a season and its not about longevity, it's about enjoying time together and making the present count, but I'm just so upset, and for once words are completely failing me. It's not that Jen and I won't continue to be friends, of course we will, but knowing we'd be apart six months and then she'd come home is one thing, knowing that she'll never come home, that we'll never be together again except for holidays, I'm so devastated I can hardly stop crying long enough to think.

It just seems like a complete goddamn tragedy and this year has been everything I thought it wouldn't be. I just wanted things to go a certain way, and I was so happy going into this year and its just all fallen apart and I hate it all so much.

I know it may seem like an overreaction to a friend moving, but it's not. If Jen moves in two weeks, I don't think we'll ever be close friends again. I don't think any friendship can survive a life long separation, let alone a friendship that has only existed for about 16 months, six of which were spent apart, no matter how good it was or how much it mattered or how sure I feel about it, no matter how much I feel that I've never connected with someone so fast or so deeply. She's a soulmate friend and it's not going to be enough because she's moving so far away. I can't survive on monthly skype calls and letters. I need people who can be there all the time, just as much for maccas runs and late night adventures as for conversation and advice. LDR don't work, either romantically or friendship wise, not when it's a close friend. If you really love someone, it's not enough to see them once every two years and talk once a week. I can't do that.

But I don't want to lose Jen and I feel like that's what her news really was. She may have said 'I'm staying in the UK' but all I heard is our friendship as we know it is over. I can't handle this kind of dual grief and unlike with Lizzy where everyone acknowledged it, no one will ever acknowledge that this means our friendship is over, it'll just happen slowly over time until I look back in a decade or two and think about the friend I had and that we lost contact and I'll feel vague regret but know that I couldn't have done anything because there was never any hope of maintaining it forever, no matter how much I love her and she loves me and all I wanted for her and I was to be the kind of friends that lasted forever, no matter where life took us. But I think I'm kidding myself when I think about living in the UK, I can't practice psychology there and I love Australia. I can't move overseas, never permanently. So it's over.

God, fuck. Fuck this, fuck everything. It's just a goddamn fucking tragedy.

Lately there is always something. Jen was the one friendship I had right now that I didn't have something holding me back from. Mia is my bffl but I can't deny that I've had doubts with her, that even this year I've had serious misgivings, serious thoughts of 'maybe we need a break', and there will always be those things there, even as we love each other and support one another. With Megan, we just aren't half as close as we were and I don't know if I want to be, I don't know. I love her to death but she doesn't feel like home anymore. It's not quite as comfortable as it was once. A lot of my friendships feel like that, like I'm uncomfortable where I didn't used to be, where things that I once found funny and exciting I now just find lame or boring and incompatible because everyone is growing up and changing, especially me. I found someone who felt like home and I loved them with everything I have and now I've found out that I can't keep it and I'm really, really, truly, desperately sad that I'm moving into a world that doesn't feel safe and secure, that I'm not going to have people to fall back onto that love me and that I can go home to, it's all just me alone and that's the scariest, realest thought I've ever had.