Random Acts of Journaling- February:

People lose people. I don't know why we are all so damn careless. Folks lose their kids, men lose their women, even friends get lost if you don't keep an eye out. I look through the windshield at the houses going by. For every person sitting in them houses, watching TV or eating a ham sandwich, there's someone somewhere wondering where and why they lost them. All those lost people, carrying on their everyday business like the air's not full of the sound of hearts breaking and bleeding. (Billy Dead, Lisa Reardon, p. 1)

Because my coworker's car is in the shop, I've been driving her to and from work the past two days. It's not much out of my way to stop and pick her up on the way there, and as much as I sometimes enjoy the ability to just zone out and put the car on autopilot in the morning, it's been a rare pleasure to have someone to talk to.

She and I have a lot in common though - this coworker of mine. She came from a similar background (in computers) into technical writing, and has been struggling with some of the same issues I've been struggling with lately. In fact we've found other odd links as well; things we were both involved in when younger. In the car this morning, and then later this afternoon, she echoed what I had been thinking - that it was such a relief to be able to talk to someone who understood. I can rant to her and know that she knows exactly where I'm coming from, and she can do the same right back.

It's not like I can't talk to my husband, or my family, because that's not the issue here at all. The issue is simply that I haven't had real girl talk in a very long time, with another female who understands the things I'm going through. I have friends, but they are scattered too far away, or too busy to get together very much anymore. Calling someone on the phone isn't the same as face-to-face, and even then, my friends and I are slipping further and further apart as they travel into the land of parenthood where I have no wish to follow.

I miss having someone I can call at any hour of day or night, to go to an all-night diner and drink coffee; to laugh over things no one else could possibly find funny; to let our voices mingle in a rush of sharing and combined understanding. I am losing my friends slowly, to this thing called life. It is no fault of theirs or mine that they are slipping away, but that makes it no less of a loss to be the one who watches it happen, and realizes that there is no way to stem the subtle erosion of what used to be.