On Friendship

Divorce sucks. Plain and simple. It's been over a year now and I'm still bugged by residual crap from my relationship with T. Just this week we finally got separate cell phone plans. We're still tied financially because of the animals (and will be for a while longer, I would imagine) but at least we're finally not sharing any more bills.

Our 'close friendship' post-breakup has withered away into just about nothing at this point. She doesn't answer my calls, I don't rush to respond to her texts. We've faded into the background of each other's lives like so much wallpaper. This makes me sad when I think about it, but mostly I don't. Time just keeps on passing and we get further apart.

What really freaks me out about losing her as a friend is that I am really not good at making new ones. Brian seriously got all of the social genes in the family, or maybe he just got lucky when he married Margaret or both, but for whatever reason he has a giant social circle of friends whereas I have maybe two or three good ones. It has always been like this. I tend to put all of my friend eggs in a couple of baskets and then end up depending a little too much on them to be there when I need them. I don't quite know what that is all about.

So anyway, there is now a dearth of outside influences in my life. Too much of my social life is happening on facebook, which is excellent for keeping in touch with a wide range of friends but the interaction is so surface, so meaningless. Does it really matter if three of my friends like swiss cake rolls as much as I do? It's not really a medium for a good, in-depth conversation.

So I find myself missing T, because whatever we weren't to each other, when we were together she was always up for good, in-depth conversations about just about anything. As it turns out, that's worth a whole hell of a lot in the scheme of things.

xo,
C

Time marches on...

...even if I'm not writing about it. Sure, I have excuses. I've been busy with schoolwork, busy with work work, busy planning my trip. But the real reason I haven't written anything is that I don't feel all that certain about anything right now. For the first time in a long time, I no longer have the illusion that I know how my life is going to turn out. At this point, I genuinely have no idea.

One lesson learned over the past few weeks: dating is not an enjoyable activity, at least most of the time. Either you're stuck out with the least self-aware guy on the planet (who asks you to hold his stuff while he goes to pee in the alley...yes, this really happened) or you're waiting at home for the one you thought you hit it off with to call. It is no longer any wonder to me that people end up settling for less than magical love....this shit is emotionally exhausting!

When my love life gets me down I distract myself by thinking about my upcoming trip. I think about disconnecting from things here for a while. I think about the bliss of not being online, of just driving and seeing something new and thinking whatever I want to think about it without worrying about anyone else's opinion. Too much of my life has been lived in reaction to other people's thoughts or standards or opinions. I am looking forward to knowing how it feels to shed the responsibility of satisfying someone else'e ideals. Maybe that's a tall order, maybe I won't entirely succeed, but at least I'll give it a try.

Plus I'm going to see Graceland. That can't be a bad thing. :)

xo,
C