"newly baffled strangers"

the joy that rises in my chest from the company I've been keeping has been so thoroughly fulfilling that I feel I might explode from happiness. it seems strange to realize that all these wonderful people have been surrounding me for a while and it is only now that I have awoken to their presence and personalities and I find them to be such tremendous people that I almost quaver in their presence, as a fear trembles over me that I might somehow ruin it all if I say the wrong thing.

my new year's resolution has been the driving force behind this, and yet, it had already begun some months ago with the inclusion of annie and walter (two amazing and incredibly warm and fuzzy coffee shop customers) into my social bosom. all day I wondered how I could wait until Monday to speak with annie again. today I had a sushi lunch with walter and it was like spending time with someone who knows you so well that you don't even have to talk, yet there is always something to say, no matter how many times I hang out with him. then there is my coworker val, who has the kind of laugh that makes you yearn to say funny things just so you can hear it again and again. her delight in me gives me great pleasure, and I can only hope she feels my appreciation of her good values, sense of humor and kindness in each of my expressions to her. we went to see a movie and I spoiled her with peanut butter hershey's kisses and hot cheetos, and we reveled in our own secret jokes.

yesterday I got to hang out with beth, who I realize I haven't seen in many months, and her husband ed, and their pets, and I literally found myself sitting back in one of their newly accquired dining room chairs and simply being in the moment, resting, completely content, a feeling I have not had in some time.

my conversation with them is awkward, and sometimes intimate, as if they can see past my physical self and right into my innermost thoughts, and I know this is just a symptom of my loneliness, which I had not realized plagued me so deeply until today.

a man who comes to the coffeeshop quite often who happens to physically resemble my old roommate greg: entered and I engaged him in the most gregarious and whooping kind of statements that he, quite frankly, seemed baffled by, because there is no history of that between us, just polite and perfunctory exchanges, and it occurred to me that I miss my old roommate greg quite a lot, a lot more than I would ever admit as an answer if that question was posed. of course, when I am no longer forced to endure his presence, I find myself fondly recalling the moments that were good between us and feel forlorn enough to wonder if it really was so bad after all.

[can you tell I am reading a classic novel?]