the 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

- "i'm the exception."
- "you're my exception."

i just got finished watching he's just not that into you. justine, a best friend of mine, has been wanting to watch this movie for forever, and i kinda promised her that i'd bring her to watch it. but i guess we got too busy and now it's not in theaters. but i pulled some strings and now we'll be watching it tomorrow. i try my hardest to pull through with my promises.

promises. most of the time, when i make promises, i haven't the slightest clue about the strings attached to that promise. it may not be a big deal when it has to do with trivial things, like a movie or a borrowed pen. but when it comes to a promise of never leaving, that's when things get sticky.

i mentioned my friend justine up there. i met her on the second day of stevens orientation on castle point. honestly, the first month or so of school was so blurry that i don't remember exactly how justine and i got closer. but i do remember october 5, 2008. it was a sunday; justine and i had been talking about certain things having to do with her now-exboyfriend. and i don't remember how it happened, but i asked her to be my best friend. or something along those lines, cause you don't really 'ask' for a best friend, they just come. but with that always comes a promise that there would be no letting go; no leaving. i broke that promise.

as the months went by, i felt like my relationship with her wasn't going anywhere. i wasn't learning things about her; i don't think i was able to communicate with her. the problem, now that i look back, might have been that we rushed into it, thinking that we could trust each other only after a month. and both of us were wrong. time passed and in late january/early february, i 'called it quits.' i thought i couldn't handle it anymore. i thought that the moniker 'best friend' with her was only that - a label and nothing more.

after that, i was a jerk to her. i called her names, put her down, and i could tell that it was taking a toll on her. and part of me felt really bad, yet part of me somewhat enjoyed it, and i don't know why. well i think it was because i felt as if that was payback for the months i thought were wasted on her. it sounds really harsh but to be honest, i really felt that way. for a long time. you could say that towards justine, i had a really dark cloud over my head. until one day, i remembered a time from back in the fall. when all the stevens friends slept over at my house, and we were up at 5:30 in the morning. we had this deep conversation that turned into one person saying a little message to all the other people in the room. and it was justine's turn to tell me something. and i remember her saying this: "thank you, richard. i've told you so many things that i haven't told anyone else..." and then she broke down. and i rushed over to her and held her in my arms, trying to comfort her.

when i remembered this, it suddenly came to me that what we had in the fall wasn't a joke. it wasn't fake. it was real. and i was a big asshole for letting that go. but i didn't want to approach her cause i knew that she'd be bitter towards me.

but it's amazing how things can turn around in the span of a couple of weeks. i really don't even know how it happened, but it culminated to a point where, starting last friday, we had long as hell conversations on aim every day about each other's love escapades. and it was really comforting to be close to her again. now we're back to being close, but we're nowhere near where we used to be. we're better than that now because we understand each other.

she blogged about it yesterday, and i never realized how much she cared for this relationship, just as much as i did. but i guess we show it in different ways, which i totally understand now. we are legit best friends again, and this time, i'm not fucking it up.

one thing we had a conversation about was a girl i liked. justine always encouraged me to go for it, and i think she was getting annoyed cause i always put myself down. i compared myself to other guys who seemed to be into this girl, all of whom justine knew. and she encouraged me and said that i should go for it.

but then, i had a conversation with my other best friend, kim. and we had this talk about what we were going to do in 10 years. kim and i, we're both lost. she has her reasons. and i, i just have been lost for the past five years. we both are trying to figure out what we want. it got me thinking about what i really wanted out of life. is love really that important to put so much emphasis on it?

then i had an epiphany. i'm still working on the details, but it makes me feel so good.

i realized that i have the best best friends in the world. i have justine, i have kim, and i have two others, and i trust them with my life. plus my family of 'brothers and sisters' - aka my godsiblings - as well as all my other great friends. and i love them. if i have all of that, what else do i need in life? i realized that all the energy i would have put into a serious relationship, i put into all the individual relationships with each of my friends and family, esp. my godsiblings and my best friends. and for now, i wouldn't have it any other way. they complete me. and by complete, i mean that i am whole; 1/1. so if i add another part to that, that would make me more than whole. like 4/3 or 3/2. and that's not possible. i'm not willing to sacrifice even a little bit of my energy that i put towards my friends for some girl that, yeah, i'd be attracted to but otherwise would be almost the same as the ones i already have.

i'm not closing my doors on love. in fact, i still welcome it. but until now, i've been actively looking, thinking about who could be right for me among the people i know now. and i realized that that's absurd. kim taught me a valuable lesson - don't look for love, let it come to you. something that isn't forced, something that doesn't have a reason, that is the best kind of love. something that just happens naturally. but until that person and i finally meet, i'm not going to put energy into finding someone. i will let fate take its course, and until then, i'll treat my friends as my life. because they're worth it.