valves

What I've come to realize in putting myself back together is that I am not the shell I made myself out to be. I saw other people quantitatively. I saw relationships and friendships on a one dimensional plot: you stick with them until you've gained all that you've needed to gain, and you're done. You are somebody's friend because there is a mutual benefit. You confide in somebody because you need support and the expectation is that you'll be there to give the same.

This isn't right. We'd be dropping friendships like used condoms if it were true. I've ended up with a very unhealthy mindset about people as a result.

Strangers can't do this, I've learned. It's the people you've known, people you've drifted away from who care the most, who are there for you with the fewest ulterior motives.

It's never too late to rekindle an old friendship. I've rekindled a whole forest's worth in the last week.

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i'm a sensitive bore
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Never has there ever been a time in my life where I require a valve as I do now. But valves are not to be purchased; they are not to be bartered, nor are they to be improvised. Such valves, such beautiful things, are created. They are created in the maelstroms of the most hostile and most fertile soils that all of humanity has ever experienced and ever will; they are created in the darkest and brightest of human depths; they are created in the arc lamp of two sparking, brilliant souls. These valves: human love and intimacy.
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