They sting the most because those people were then who they are now. All the seeds of all the troubles of the last few years were already there, just waiting for the right amount of rain and sun. It was the best time of my life, but it was already broken beyond repair.
I couldn't have known then, and I'm glad I didn't. I probably would never have become friends with Miles or Jacob if I'd known their particular flaws ahead of time, but both of them have changed me, and I wouldn't go back to being who I was before. Miles especially - I never would have learned so much about myself if he hadn't been able to see so clearly and easily through my defenses. And Jacob has told me so many true things - it's just too bad he doesn't live by them.
For a long time now, all I've seen is the dark side. Jacob, carelessly destroying other people's lives, and Miles, helplessly destroying his own. It makes me wish I didn't care about them, because there's nothing I can do to help. They are who they are, and always have been. But I can't stop caring without forgetting about three years of friendship. Three years of learning and happiness and hoping for the best, even if the best never happened. Three years of learning exactly what it means to love other people; that it means tying a part of your soul to someone is broken, and who will let you down, and leave you with scars. And that scars are a natural byproduct of living and taking risks.
The world is subject to entropy. Everything that ever lived, dies. But is it better to be a stone that never lived at all? Maybe, if there really is no hope. But it seems strange, that such a thing as hope would exist, without there being a reason for it.
Then again, hope was the last thing let out of Pandora's Box. Who's to say it wasn't just the cleverest of the horrors inside?
---
Bluer
Than the blue devils
Bluer than this pale blue angel
Bluer than all of my troubles
Are we gonna leave here strangers
-- Over the Rhine
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