I’ve been feeling very cut off lately. I know that part of it is the extra days I worked on the few weeks, then going to night shift. Part of it is that
Thug Girl has gone over to another crew, and I don’t get my Fresh Meat until Monday morning. And part of it is that I’ve been sick, and that has consequences, like people avoiding me like the plague and me not being able to take my antidepressants. That’s a biggie, right there. I always seem to get mopey when I’ve been off my meds for a few days. Either that or really, really pissed off about, well, everything.
But that’s not all of it. There’s a lot of more contributing to this feeling or isolation, and I really need to explore it. And that means blogging about it. Ahh, gotta love the free therapy.
Another big chunk of my feelings of isolation come from the continuing tension between my family and me. Ever since the
brouhaha back in the summer, I just don’t feel comfortable around them. Not because I’m still mad, since I’ve let it go. But I know they see me differently now, and I can’t shake the feeling that they don’t like what they see very much. This is supported by the lack of contact around birthday time. I usually get a card or two from the family. This year all I got was a message on my answering machine and an e-mail a couple of days later. Christmas wasn’t much better, even if we did go out there on Christmas day. They just don’t know how to relate to me anymore. Especially Dad. And I understand that. I don’t really even blame them. I just wish it weren’t so.
On top of that are my friends, who seem to be slowly slipping away. All of them.
Take
Philoman, for example. Ever since he got married, he’s been drifting inexorably away. I’m pretty sure it’s because his wife doesn’t like me or the rest of my friends, although he denies it every time I try to bring it up. I wish he’d just go ahead and admit it, to himself and me, so we could work around it. I don’t have to be friends with his wife, although I’d like to be. She’s a perfectly nice woman. Philoman tells me that she “just needs to get to know me”. But then they never do anything with us, so she has no opportunity to “get to know me”. I’m in a Catch-22 there. She doesn’t really want anything to do with me and he can’t seem to admit that about his wife. Add in the fact that their baby is due any day now, and I don’t know if I’ll get to see Philoman outside of work at all this year.
Then there are my
fundy friends, assuming you could even call them friends anymore, since they pretty much refuse to talk to me. I’ll admit I said some rough things about them, and I’m sorry that I did. I was angry, and it came out harshly. But, dammit, they hurt me a lot with their insensitivity, and they aren’t any better now. Their idea of a gesture to try to fix things was to buy me a new copy of the books they sold off on eBay in the first place, as if the actual books were the important thing about my beef with ‘em. I would have rather had them just admit that they had done something wrong, say “I’m sorry” and move the fuck on! I was willing to do that on the part of my actions, and still am. Unfortunately, they don’t seem capable of any of that, so I guess they’re pretty much out of the picture permanently. That’s sad, I suppose, but not surprising. Apparently, I intimidated at least one of them, and that’s no way to feel about a friend. You should at least approach equality in those kinds of relationships, or else they’re not friendships, but leader/follower relationships. I tend to gravitate towards the front of groups, but I don’t have to be in charge of everything or everybody all the time.
And then there are my “
boring friends”. I knew that when Amberle’s family moved into the area that things would change, but it seems that ever since Ranson and Amberle bought their own place, I never see them anymore, and when I do, it always follows the same formula: arrive, spend approximately 1 hour playing with their 2 year old, spend approximately 1 hour eating and gossiping about the latest exploits of Amberle’s sister(s) and/or mother while trying to get the 2 year old to eat, spend approximately 1 more hour playing with the 2 year old while simultaneously talking geek-stuff with Ranson, wait approximately ½ hour while they put the 2 year old to bed, spend next hour playing a game while listening to the 2 year old try to entice one of us to get him out of his room, then we go home. Lather, rinse, repeat. And that’s when I can actually arrange time with them, which seems to be getting more and more rare. I was off for almost three solid weeks at Christmas time, and spent approximately 2 hours with them during that entire time. I didn’t even see them, or much of anyone else, on my birthday. They had other plans, although they did graciously invite me to join them. I appreciated that, but opted out. I didn’t want to intrude.
That leaves
Aradia and her family. Her sister lives in Colorado, so we only see her about once every couple of years. Her parents are back in WV, so we only see them about three times a year. Her brother and his family live locally, and I see them quite a bit, but arranging work schedules is always a bitch, so it’s usually just a couple of hours every few weeks or so. And Aradia herself, well, when I actually get to spend time with her, she’s either working on school stuff or stressing about her dad. I understand both, and don’t want to intrude on the former and need to help her with the latter.
So, my life right now goes something like this: earn paycheck, do housework, blog for therapy, play five-year-old computer games. Like I said: lather, rinse, repeat.
