One Big, Happy Family.

To be completely honest, this isn't really what I originally thought an academic life would be. I thought I'd be able to concentrate more or less fully on learning new things, making new contacts and make use of everything this would be able to offer. Sure, I was mature enough to admit that nothing ever goes according to plans or assumptions, but just like Life usually does, I never really thought I'd end up in a situation like this.

That is to say, I've made friends.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no shotgun wedding yokel whose best friend was the bluest plank on the family hovel's wall. But I've never had this many friends who I've been able to drop so many masks in front of - hell, allowing myself to be me.

I've never had this many friends who've been able to completely feel at peace with both themselves and each other - I've just never had friends as spontaneously close as my fellow freshmen.

Maybe it's that most of us have finally grown up, more or less, and we're able to accept both each others flaws as well as admit that we're far from perfect; maybe we still consider ourselves young enough to still be foolish, naive and open about ourselves; maybe it's just that, by now, all of us have a few skeletons in our closets, but far from too many to not be able to talk about it.

Who knows?

But the emotional bonds between all of us is something I've just had a very hard time accepting ( being the somewhat reserved fellow that I tend to try to be), but it just feels good to have people who are both willing to talk about their own as well as listen to others' past, laugh and cry about it together and just.. well, be OK with it all.

None of us have even known each other for more than six months ( if even that), and yet I know many of them better than I know some of my friends since childhood.

And yet the little reserved part of me keeps wishing I didn't have to know everybody's dark secrets; not because they'd ruin everything, but I don't want to be in a position later on when I'd have to use any of it against them - I just don't have the heart to watch friendships like this get ruined.

A tiny part of me just keeps fearing the moment when all of us wake up from the euphoria, realize we have no need to try and flee the feeling of loneliness together any longer, realize that we know each other through and through and, ultimately, find each others' company intruding, dull, even appalling.

I couldn't take that. Never have I been so genuinely, fearlessly, childishly happy than this past autumn. We may be one big, dysfunctional family, but hell, I've never helt so at home than with these strangers.

Are all of us just trying to leave the past behind, and find comfort in knowing how everyone else feels? Is this all just childish rambling, begging for someone to tell us that, once we've settled in permanently, this'll all fade away?

I don't know, but I want to thank my friends, my strangers, for making me feel this good. From the bottom of my heart, I thank thee.

You made me find myself.