you should have kept that purity ring on...

sometimes life is so fun...it has its ups and downs and its lessons. do we really learn anything? or do we just pretend. I mostly pretend. Sometimes I wish life was just simple, and that we could explain it, but at times I don't think that would be any kind of fun. I went to dinner tonight with one of my best friends and her family....i'm always so apprehensive about calling her my best friend because we have had quite the relationship, but she truly is my best friend. We have seen each other at our worst and at our best. I trust her with everything i have...The thing about it is we have so many stories for us to share that it becomes repetitive. We can tell each others' stories, and we know how each other will react to certain situations without even asking. I bring this up because as I tell her a major thing that is going on in my life, she can already tell how I feel...or how i am going to react. I don't even need to tell her anything more than the facts. "A true friend is someone who knows there's something wrong even when you have the biggest smile on your face."

Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.

Three passions have governed my life:

The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

-bertrand russell