Smelling the Roses...

In case you were wondering, this is definitely going to be one of those vomit-inducingly sappy entries.

You know when your life somehow arrives at that place where you're just inexplicably happy all the time? Where you sit back and look at the circumstances of your current situation and just smile? I'm there right now. It's not that I haven't been happy in London before now...I have been very much. However, I am one of those people whose happiness is really determined by my friends. Ever since I was a kid, my friends have been as important to me as family; once I get close to a person and really start to love them, I can't imagine my life without them. And when I get a good close group of friends that I truly love, nothing can get me down. And that's the point at which I've recently arrived.

Of course, I've had friends since about 2 days after my arrival in London; making friends has never been a challenge for me (thank God). But it takes time to get to the point in your relationships where you are truly comfortable with people and are able to completely be yourself with them. When you're just getting to know someone, it's kind of weird to call them just because you're bored, or to tell them something trivial that made you happy, or whatever. And I never really mentioned anything on my blog about this, but I was a little depressed for the first month or so that I was here, simply because I didn't have that yet. I had friends, but I didn't have best friends, if that makes any sense. But just in the last month or so, I feel like my proverbial cup has begun to runneth over. Of course, I would be lost without Fiona, Betsy, Jeff, and all my other friends from my course, but I've also gotten a lot closer to my theatre friends, and I think that's what really cemented my current giddiness. I know for a fact that if my soon-to-be-flatmates Alicia and Joe suddenly disappeared, I would be completely lost. Also, being a complete tomboy, it's been really disconcerting not having a bunch of guys around to hang out with. However, just recently I started hanging out with the musical theatre boys, and I finally feel like myself now that I'm hanging around a bunch of men all the time. That sounds silly, but having grown up with nearly all male friends and then going through college with mostly men friends, it has been very strange to try and be myself around almost all women. I love my women friends here more than life, but there's still a sense of comfort and security and ease that comes with hanging around guys, and I think the recent deluge of male friends in my life is largely responsible for the happiness I've been feeling lately.

Anyway. Friends are good. They make me happy. Now that I've finally found my niche, I don't think I could leave London even if I wanted to. :)