I'm currently sitting by the fireplace, the warm fire blazing, Javier sketching, the Christmas tree alight, one of my favorite band's music in my ear. It's very lovely, but I'm very sad. I had to turn down one of my friends today. After hesitating about it for many days and leaving the poor guy hanging, I decided no because it really wouldn't be fair to him. He, and everyone else in the world, deserves someone who wants to be with him just as much as he wants to be with her, and I can't be that for him. At the very least, not now. I really, really care about him. He's one of my closest friends, but I guess it just wouldn't work out in a romantic sense. It makes me question if girls and boys really can be purely platonic friends, whether or not there's always something in the back of the mind questioning, wondering what was possible. I've always felt so comfortable, so safe, with him, and it makes me so sad now. I hope things can go back to the way they were. I wished I could be with him. I really did. I hated myself for being the type of girl that wouldn't be content, for not being that girl for him. I wanted to be. He would be the sweetest thing, but it just can't be. I think of all the things that then must go into two people really finding each other, really connecting in that way in that they're "meant" to be together. It's really more difficult than I could ever have imagined. So many things have to fit that it really is quite a miracle. Someone likes someone more than they like them back. Someone had rough breakup and doesn't want a relationship at the moment. Someone would have dated you last year, but has since decided otherwise, etc. It's like every relationship is this mosaic of a million different pieces, and all of them have to fit perfectly together to make it work. It's so rare, but it's so beautiful when it happens.

I sang for three and a half hours straight today. My voice is feeling kind of raw. First Robert's rehearsal for his final piece for composition class, and then Joseph's senior thesis rehearsal. Robert's piece is beautiful... it's set to a beautiful ee cummings (I'm not capitalizing for obvious reasons) poem, which is saying something because I don't even like him. And Robert is a musical genius. And a genius in general. I'm so honored to be singing in it. One day, he'll have real sopranos singing for him, but now, I guess I'll suffice. I had about 25 minutes between the two rehearsals, so I decided to just sit and read while Robert played around on the piano. When I play around on the piano, I play random snippets of songs I've learned or make up random chords. When Robert plays around on the piano, having never been trained in piano, he creates the most luminous pieces ever. It's like magic emerges from his fingertips. He started making something up, and I was just like, "I see a gray, rainy day in England, with a girl walking down the sidewalk with a big yellow umbrella." And that was exactly what he saw, except he saw a blonde girl instead of a yellow umbrella. It was amazing. So much talent.