New Life Lessons.

I didn't realize how much my friends mean to me tonight.
(And not just in a tangible way where I know they'll be there tomorrow and the next day and the day after that but in a way that I can fight with them and argue with them and still have that intense friendship right afterwords.)
I was given insight into a 'new' friends life tonight. And I don't think I have room to complain about anything anymore. Not because his life sucks, but because of how much he keeps it all in. He's failing classes. He's got a crappy GPA. He's got a idiotic sister who ran off and had an abortion without anyone knowing only to be found by the police/FBI later. (Idiotic for running off and not telling anyone, make your own opinions on the abortion side) He's stuck on school to job to homework to nightmares about calculus and programming classes and anything school related. He doesn't want to go to church anymore because he just doesn't believe in it anymore...

And in the midst of him venting this at me I realized that I don't know much about 85% of the people I spend most of my time with.
It's like a light came on (and yes I know how cliche that is...) and now I can't shut it off. These people that I've spent a little more than a year with and I know maybe their birthdays, mostly with the help of Facebook, and/or the small issues that we all have with professors or parents or anything else.
My head hurts trying to figure it all out. And who I want to know more about. And who I don't want to know more about.

There's been a huge influx of people coming into my life and staying recently and I'm not sure how to navigate through those waters. I've had the same friends since seventh grade and I've known lots of people (as I can talk to a brick wall) and I've been around a lot of people all of my life. A lot of the *same* people. We all knew each other because we *all* went to elementary school and middle school together and (go figure) high school too! I've always had new people in small pieces, but now, I've had over 20 new people walk into my life in the past ... two weeks. Which I guess isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things. Its just so much new and I like it, but its pushing overload at this point, but I digress...

The story of my friend, who I've learned so much about in the past twenty eight hours, is really opening my eyes to whats going on outside of my little bubble. I've had these situations before, and learned from them. But this is probably the first I've actually written about in the past year since I lost my journal. I want to be able to know these new/old people like I know myself. And love them, mainly because they deserve it for putting up with me, with everything I have to offer.