"So she had to satisfy herself with the idea of love--loving the loving of things whose existence she didn't care at all about. Love itself became the object of her love. She loved herself in love, she loved loving love, as love loves loving, and was able, in that way, to reconcile herself with a world that fell so short of what she would have hoped for. It was not the world that was the great and saving lie, but her willingness to make it beautiful and fair, to live a once-removed life, in a world once-removed from the one in which everyone else seemed to exit." --Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

I really love that book. It was really hard to pick one specific quote from it, but this one definitely sticks out. There were so many instances when I was reading it that I just had to pause and re-read sections again just to appreciate the beauty and truth of it. Foer has a pretty tragic view of the world, I think, but he does take the existentialist view that you're able to create your own beauty in the mess of chaos and unmeaning and everything else.

I truly am in love with love. I am constantly searching for it, in everything that I do and touch and see and feel. It's a part of my INFP-ness: "They feel a need to be in a committed, loving relationship. If they are not involved in such a relationship, the INFP will be either actively searching for one, or creating one in their own minds." It's so true. It's so why I need definition, so why I can just have something and take hold of it and make myself so involved in something that it's hard to pull away. Even if I don't seem it, even if I see so calm on the outside, on the inside, everything is so intense. If my gut and my heart unconsciously deem you worthy enough of such intensity, it will grow so much that sometimes I can't even realize it until you're gone. It takes awhile for that to fade away. With Nick, it started fading long before we ended, so when we ended, it wasn't hard for me. I know it was for him, and I still feel sad about that.

I don't regret anything. Not for a single moment will I regret.

I sort of feel that at this point I really do have a blueprint for the love I should have. Every time has been different, and I like to say that it's like kissing. Every person is different, so when you're with a new person, it's like you have to learn kissing all over again. Every person loves differently, and sometimes you need to adjust. And I think that when you have to adjust so much that you're uncomfortable, then it isn't going to work. Yet, I think that adjusting in some small amount is necessary in a relationship. It's what makes you look at yourself, look at your love, understand both. It's what makes it exciting. If you don't have to change at all, I don't know if it'll be exciting enough. So far, I've had to adjust for every person I've been with, and I know which ones I had to adjust for the most, to the point that I didn't want to face that I had adjusted too much, but looking back on it, I knew. But I also know what is just right. I need to find that just right.

There was a point at the beginning of the spring semester that I didn't have romantic feelings for anyone. It was an awful, empty, sickening feeling. And I knew that's what it was because I had almost never felt that feeling before. I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't liked someone. It's like I need to feel something for someone, even if I'm not with them necessarily. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing. I know it's what's led me to jump from relationship-to-relationship, and be afraid of being alone. I'm really trying my hardest to understand that I need to stay single for awhile. And not to be active in looking. Just let them come to me, because that's usually the way it works out.

I'm happy. And I think I will be even happier when I'm back in Simmons and surrounded by not only friends, but potential new friends. That's my goal for the year: Make more friends, especially girl friends, and make better attempts to have solid relationships with many of them, not just one or two. I think it's harder when you're not a "clique," just having random friends here and there like I always have. But seriously, though, I really need to. At the same time, I do hope to grow even closer with the best friends I already have.

I've learned lots. Lots and lots, and I am very satisfied with that. Now I just need to learn more in, what I would say is, a pretty underdeveloped area of knowledge. Let it begin.