Ants marching

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

~C.S. Lewis

I'm afraid of a lot of things but the thing I'm most afraid of is becoming like this quote. Sometimes I think I'm odd for enjoying my alone time. That I should stay at work after my shift and hang out with my coworkers who drink until the early morning.

I have a coworker friend who went through a really rough time. He was crying out for people to help him. We had several really intense talks and I felt like we really bonded. Now that his situation has resolved itself he doesn't seek me out anymore. I look in his eyes and I can see his guard is up. There is something else there in his eyes that keeps me at a distance. I feel a wall between us. I don't know why it's there. I don't know what changed. I really miss him.