Ironically, two songs from commercials struck home to me lately. Each performance seems to be the one that hits the hardest:

Indeed, it seems like my frequency rarely fully converges with anyone anymore. I'm headed down a path of increasing isolation, and it's this loneliness that drags me down more than anything. I used to be weak and taunted; now I'm guarded and closed. The former was horrendously awful, but the good moments were far better. The bad moments are gone, but so are the things which made the good. I was weird and quirky and strange as a child. But I was also open, polite, and original. The very qualities which attracted the torment are the very qualities that made me something else. Now I have been worn away to their level, a bitter shell that turns to cruelty when his loneliness becomes too unbearable. I'd like to think that I'm a step above them, however. They loathed the me I used to be for putting their own problems in sharp relief; I respect and admire that me for showing me what it's possible for a human being to be. They allow themselves to wallow in their mean-spiritedness. I try to rise above it and regain a hint of what I admire so; I am not always successful or I wouldn't be so cruel. But the effort sets me apart a little, I hope.

The fair was wonderful. I went with the friend that couldn't make it to Sunday's goings-on. I like going with him because you get the most well-rounded perspective of the goings-on. His sister shows her horse every year, so that means we get to see the traditional aspects of the fair as well; 4-H and the animal barns, the agricultural areas and the vegetable judging. Add to that the burgers and lemonade and fair food as well as some truly bitchin' Midway rides, and you have a Grade A day at the fair. It was a wonderful experience like that centered in an event that I spent many years as a child doing with my family that showed me how much I was on the verge of possibly losing. I will never have the people and experiences I have now exactly the same again. It is a tragedy, and an opportunity. I spent the night's post mourning the tragedies of what will never come so that I may concentrate of the possibilities that I couldn't envision from a static environment of living. Freeing myself to the world is perhaps not unconquerable.