What is normal?

Dear Green Eyes,
I was just living, like always, moving from thing to thing. I felt a little twinge in that pocket of emotions that I think we call a heart: I missed you. I'm never really sure how the emotion goes with the thought, but whatever.
Of course, to an extent, I wear my heart on my sleeve. But tonight even I was suprised by myself (P.s. I am E)
E:even as im missing a used to be best friend who i thought i was in love with but am not afraid to call and be alone with/haha/but it could be worse, i could be dying from an uncurable never before seen disease right?
T:right.../well i think u should...i not sure...talk to green eyes?
E: i know
T: im not sure what this means and i jsut remembered it, but i thought i'd tell u and see what you thought. a long time ago, before u guy started talking again green eyes said things had changed between you guys, and something about how u had changed/like...im not sure how to put it
E: just say it, remember, im ice queen, no feelings
T: maybe he said something like too "righteous??" or too strong?/i didn't really understand
E:it figures/honestly, how long ago was that?
T: oh when we saw him at sat 2s actually/ya i remember b/c i was like we should hang out w/ E but he said something like that
E: T why are u telling me this?
T: b/c i realized that i should no longer be encouraging u to pursue Green Eyes/nor should i discourage but i thought u should know...was i wrong to?
E: no, although ill admit it stings a bit
T: yeah im sorry but i wanted to be honest w/ u/and i thought it was important for u to kno
E: well maybe he's right/ive been thinking a bit about that lately/but i think a lot of it is show anyways/idk/what do u think?
T: what do u mean "a lot of it is show anyways?"/well i think that being headstrong is admirable, but i can get overdone/i mean i dont htink ur always heastrong or w/e
E: haha im not offended/i suppose im just trying to find a balance, like everyone else/i mean i think the E Green Eyes remembers was the one who was afraid of hurting peoples feelings, who was always trying to make people feel happy/all i know, is that i have always been afraid of getting hurt, and...i dont know, i got so sick of secrets and of trying to please everyone and to try not to hurt anyone's feelings that i felt like i was losing myself...its become so much easier to say what i think, to just put me out there/and im sure im headstrong, cause i often take it too far because im still just as scared of being hurt, of letting people get too close? i dont know
T: well u can't avoid not getting hurt/and i kno u r sick of secrets, but...that's kindof the way life works
E:but it doesnt have to
T: its good to keep some secrets to urself i mean do u want the hwole kent community really knowing who u truly are? i would feel exposed
E: i mean, a secret is just like pretending something that happened or some emotion that exists doesn't, why do u have to pretend/no, but i dont tell everyone my secrets/but if i think that u are being annoying, who does it hurt if i dont tell you? it hurts me, and you, because im pretending that i dont hurt you, im not trusting and respecting you enough to tell you that/like with rich girl?
T: no it's not, its just shielding ur secret away from people and keeping it to urself/well yeah i mean i've learned to take it from you, but it does hurt sometimes. i think u hurt mroe by telling than by not/like i think rich girl is annoying but at times she can be really sweet and i try to ignore when she is annoying, but if it goes overboard, i get snappish with her/i tell her in the way i act rather than straight out/it's just..im not sure? courteousy?
E: dont u get sick of trying to decipher how people are acting? like in mean girls, when that one girl is like "oh i love ur bracelet" and turns around and says that it is so ugly/how is that being gracious? its not like u have to comment on the hideousness of the bracelet, but why lie?
T: that's different. i mean to use that metaphor, it's like going up to me and saying "you're not being annoying" when i am being annoying but to ignore it is different/like the bracelet, if u don't like it, then don't comment
E:so if i see u doing something stupid i am supposed to ignore it?
T: well what is stupid? like standing up in assembly and making a fool of myself or dancing around w/o my clothes?
E: i dont know?/i dont know T, i just got sick of pretending. which is probably why my closest friends are the ones who just tell me what they think right out/because i know that they respect me enough/and i wish that michael had just told me that
T: yeah well some people just can't do that
E: and then u wouldnt have had to, but did u notice, that u told me the truth because u respect me? cause u thought that it was the right thing to do?
T: i dont think it shows anything really
E: i mean its kinda weird that u would tell me i was in love with michael while still knowing that though...
T: yea i was like "oh shoot i should not tell her that anymore and here is why"/well that's also very different b/c this is about michael, not me. like i wouldn't tell u straight out if u were being annoying
E:but then if u happened to tell someone else, say becky, they would probably mention it/and i would be all hurt and mad at you even though u wouldnt even know i knew/thats SO complicated
T:well we're girls we have feelings/but the thing is, i wouldn't tell anyone else/at least i wouldn't tell them what i didn't want u to kno/it's much easier to be told indirectly than straight from the source, at least thats what i think
E: sure its easier, but, me, i dont really trust that person very much anymore/maybe im making excuses, but last year, jomama and elizabeth and i held together a group of at least 10 people/and you would be suprised how many dark secrets came out, how much drama there was on top of all the normal teen stuff/and so, as someone who knew everything, i could not mentally hold in ALL those secrets. i didnt have the time or the energy to be everybody's messenger/i couldnt be the middle person because i would get blamed and start more drama. so i try to be responsible for me myself and i/i cant go through all that other stuff, its too exhausting and it ruins people, it rips you up. i still keep the secrets, all those dark ones and one of those weighs 20 times me keeping the secret of how i actually feel about someone/and maybe thats an excuse, but it is also very true, i think, because before last year, i was like you, i didnt want to hurt anyone, i wanted to make sure no one was offended. but there is ALWAYS someone who u will offend, who will be hurt and you will die trying if you try to please everybody. i dont want to live my life like that
T:well i agree. i mean i can't please everybody and i've stopped trying to/but whats so bad about the secrets? i think ur only letting it hurt u b/c isn't ur job just to listen?/i mean if its not ur secret, ur just there to help/although i don't know how dark ur secrets are.../but if i told u someone was annoying, would that really bother u?/and weigh u down?
E: if u heard from 10 people in a day, and then heard about who they liked, and then about their deepest darkest secrets, which one would u choose to keep/i tried SO hard T, to do it almost all on my own, even keeping things from jomama (although i told elizabeth almost everything) but i broke down too many times/i mean, i didnt have that ONE person i could tell everything, i had 10 children to take care of who treated eachother and themselves like crap. and i spent the whole year wishing i could have kept every secret, cause i know people felt betrayed, but that one person i looked for, that was Green Eyes, and sure it was probably partially my fault he wasn't around, but i had to go it on my own
T:well then i dont htink u chose to please the right people. i mean true, u can't please everyone but u can please the people u like/well u know what, those ten children are damn lucky u were listening b/c u shouldn't be the one to clean up their mess. i mean what were u getting in return for it?
E: i was their friend, i didnt want anymore, and u know i loved hearing everything and having all that power
T:well then why are u complaining about hearing it?/and u do have power, but really, it's their fault if u told b/c they trusted u in the first place
E: im not complaining about hearing it, all im saying is that one 16 year old CANNOT handle that. at least i couldnt, and maybe that means i failed, but thats why i am how i am toay/*today/ and its like u said, its one thing trusting someone with a deep dark secret, or even who u like, but telling me that ur annoyed with someone and then not to tell...yeah, thats not likely
T:oh...well idk i miss parts of the old E too...whoever that is/yeah well first u have to ask urself why they were telling u their secrets?/did they want help or jsut someone to lsten?
E:i dont know T, im glad its over/i think it was more like i was supposed to choose sides/because, if you had me, you had elizabeth and jomama and then basically you had won, whatever the stupid problem was/im sry u miss the old E, i do too, sometimes
T: well that's what hs is i guess/well don't apologize to me it doesn't matter what anyone thnks but u
E: haha thanks/but i mean what do u miss? just that i would watch my mouth?
T: maybe.../i miss the E that couldn't keep a secret. haha she was great
E:that couldn't keep a secret?/oh my gosh do u remember when for like almost all of sophomore year i was annoyed with u?/but i was too scared to tell u?
T: yeah/well i knew
E: haha, wasnt it annoying that i just didnt tell you/wait, you are glad i COULDNT keep a secret
T: not really i knew anyone so why should u tell me? if u told me it'd be like u were demanding that i change/well ok i miss the E that was quieter, more giggly and liked to gossip/why were u annoyed w/ me again?/well idk haha ur going to hate me for using this but i miss the E who doesn't fit the stereotype of a feminist...i kinda already told u that lol but u took it the wrong way
E: haha/what the strong, blunt part, or the activist part?/i mean i know that culturally its bad to be a crazy feminist, but i mean being a feminist means u believe in equal rights for men and women
T: i kno we looked i up/it*
E: and the quiet part?...thats never been me, i was just always too afraid to talk and then my mom gave me this quote that said "Speak your mind even when ur voice shakes"
T: yeah strong, blunt, loud, in my face
E: HAHA/and yet we talk almost as much as we did freshman year?

*in a whisper* is that how you feel? Felt? Think? That I changed? And, *shouting* you dumbass, how is it a bad thing that I found my voice? That I'm not so scared, ok, so maybe I am, but that I show it in a different? How is it bad that you don't have to pry my lips open to get me to tell you why you hurt my feelings? Do you know how HARD it has been to get to this point?
*whisper* but why wouldn't you tell me that? Is that why we don't talk anymore? Do you remember when, at this exact time of year, you sent me an email, asking me for helping, telling me that you were afraid that things would never be normal again? Did life ever become normal for you? Because it didn't for me? You just learn to live with the pain, you put a harder shell around yourself, because even if you didn't love your best friend, you sure as hell cared a whole lot for him. But telling him you loved him...well that split you apart, didn't it, before different interests and schools and beliefs could...would it have been different? Would you still be best friends with me? Would you still come to me when you needed help? Would you have not zoned out when I was talking that one day when we finally hung out after almost a year of not talking? Would I have learned to say what I felt and what I thought without needing the help of a computer?
Because I am callous now. It's like I said, ice queen. Nothing really touches me. Sure, I get offended, and I get mad, but thats not a feeling. I'm just caught up with the need to win. I don't feel much. I hang around with blunt people who tell it like it is because it is nice to know they aren't hiding anything from me and that I don't have to watch my words around them and I LIKE that. I am naturally dramatic, so weaving complicated webs is so easy for me and for the first time in what seems like a long time, I don't have to do that. But where is that E? Where is she?
I stared at myself in the mirror, because I only let myself cry, really cry, in the bathroom, where the sound of the running bathwater drowns out the sound of my sobs, pretending I was talking to you. And my eyes are so hurt. I am still so hurt. I didn't stop caring about you, I just learned to ignore it. I miss you so much.
So what do I do now? It probably won't ever be the same...not us talking for hours on AIM or running around the mall, always getting ice cream. But I wish...I wish I knew what you thought of me. Do I text you or do I just keep walking? I didn't thing I would have to walk away again...it'll hurt just as much as the first time. I miss that strong E who didn't second guess herself so much, who wasn't afraid that you would ignore me, Green Eyes, just like you seem to...or you get distracted and forget...I could do it right now, text you, call you, email you, something, but if you didn't respond...well, my heart is beating again and I know it would feel that. Besides,*sigh*, it's almost Thanksgiving. I really really miss you.