Courage to change the things I can....
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about that line from the Serenity Prayer...
As some of you may know, I came down with a kidney stone at the beginning of March. I suffered with it for most of the month, with the removal, finally, on the 28th. I got the stent from the surgery removed last week. Physically, I'm feeling pretty good (although I have to drink a lot of water now and am still waiting to find out what the stone was made of....)
But there are still a number of things off in my life. A little more than two years ago, most of my friends ended up moving because their husbands' company closed. About the same time I threw myself into building a career in blogging. I then lost two other friends over a difference in lifestyles. I was in the middle of a huge change of life and career and got a load of shit about being "insensitive" and "not running a business right"--and subsequently didn't care to speak with those two friends any more.
And with building a career in a very difficult industry, with little background in anything else, I simply haven't had the time to get involved in things that might help me make new friends. Part of that is that my career is in this little box we call a computer and while I have a number of good friends in there, most of those friends are disembodied voices on the phone or flurries of email (I haven't gotten into Twitter yet...and rarely post pictures on Flickr. But most of my "friends" are business associates, and I wonder how much I really want to talk or show about my life in those spaces.)
I've also been weird to talk to. I've been fairly obsessed with achieving, which doesn't make me the most sparkling of conversationists. And there's no kids or other family to break up the monotony of obsessive overworking....
So, most of the time it's been me and Steady Eddie--a few other people here and there, some stuff with local chambers of commerce, but not a lot in the way of parties or a social life.
Frankly, it's been pretty depressing.
I bitched and moaned to Steady Eddie about it, and that just brought up in stark relief the differences in our personalities and our wants for the future. I really want people, friends, things to do other than just he and I finding things to do. I'm extroverted by nature, and not having something to do with friends has been hard. And, friends just aren't important to him. He's fine with just me and caring about me. That's not enough, though. It's not comfortable to me. It's kind of boring. And it's been part of why he and I are moving towards being just friends...
Working on my own, at home, for almost three years, has been hard. I feel like I've lost social skills, that I'm just getting geekier and weirder and everything's like business networking without a personal connection...
And I never really saw adults making friends. My parents didn't have friends. So, just hanging out with Steady Eddie seems natural--except we should have some little hostage hanging around, which we don't, which is a good thing.
So, I'm looking at my life, and I know things have to change. Steady Eddie and I, though therapy, have realized that we're just not meant to be a married couple. That we are each other's very best friends. I think that's great--the funny thing about it is that we've been trying to be "normal" about the whole thing, and in that, I've discovered how I've had very interesting and non-normal relationships with guy friends over the years. In fact, some of my closest friends have been my guy friends more than my girl friends. The whys and hows of that don't really matter. It's just the way I am. And while Steady Eddie and I have been breaking up, I've been remembering all these different friendships and they've become a template for how things are playing out between us.
I couldn't live without him, really. He's like a brother, in some ways. He's taken the place of my blasted family and honestly, I think he cares more for me than they ever did--even though he and I do not have enough in common for us to be married...
So, I'm sitting here thinking about how I'm going to make friends--what I should do. Should I move to Boston or L.A. or S.F. or some other place where I know people? Should I stay here, join a church, try to connect with people here? Is it time I start dating again? Am I even in good enough shape to date and have it be a good experience?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I know that I'm really scared. I was in the past, when I went through periods where friends drifted away or I was alone for other reasons. I know I probably felt the fear before, but I never acknowledged it, nor tried to do something about it. I probably did something to get beyond it, but things are different when you're a young person among many other young people without partners. Now, in adulthood, when so many are married, I have no idea how I'm supposed to do things. I still seem to make friends with men, but I wonder the appropriateness of this in middle age. I worry about these things more than I used to.
Perhaps it's just getting older and not really wanting to be in this space at this age--having to worry and go out and make new friends. I wonder what I'll have in common with other people, if I'll have to hide who I am in order to fit in, if I need to be in other environments where there are people like me.
There are so many unanswerables. The only answerable is that I have to summon up the courage--the intestinal fortitude, to do this friend-making thing. I can sit here letting things go on the way they are--with few connections other than Steady Eddie. I find myself sitting around missing people, with a belly-full of regrets over what left my life years ago. I just do not want to live that way--worrying about old life paths left behind and what could have been because there's nothing being and becoming now in my life.
Maybe this is just a fallow field time in the friendship cycle. I know some of that comes from neglect, from focusing on career. I have trouble with balance, that's for sure. So, it's trying to have balance...
and that's so hard when the career's only partly established....
but how long do I have to wait for things to be good enough. I waited too long for children. I can't have no courage and wait too long for things to change on the friend front. Steady Eddie's not going to help me there. I have to do it myself, that's for sure....
and it's a lot to do...
and very scary...
As some of you may know, I came down with a kidney stone at the beginning of March. I suffered with it for most of the month, with the removal, finally, on the 28th. I got the stent from the surgery removed last week. Physically, I'm feeling pretty good (although I have to drink a lot of water now and am still waiting to find out what the stone was made of....)
But there are still a number of things off in my life. A little more than two years ago, most of my friends ended up moving because their husbands' company closed. About the same time I threw myself into building a career in blogging. I then lost two other friends over a difference in lifestyles. I was in the middle of a huge change of life and career and got a load of shit about being "insensitive" and "not running a business right"--and subsequently didn't care to speak with those two friends any more.
And with building a career in a very difficult industry, with little background in anything else, I simply haven't had the time to get involved in things that might help me make new friends. Part of that is that my career is in this little box we call a computer and while I have a number of good friends in there, most of those friends are disembodied voices on the phone or flurries of email (I haven't gotten into Twitter yet...and rarely post pictures on Flickr. But most of my "friends" are business associates, and I wonder how much I really want to talk or show about my life in those spaces.)
I've also been weird to talk to. I've been fairly obsessed with achieving, which doesn't make me the most sparkling of conversationists. And there's no kids or other family to break up the monotony of obsessive overworking....
So, most of the time it's been me and Steady Eddie--a few other people here and there, some stuff with local chambers of commerce, but not a lot in the way of parties or a social life.
Frankly, it's been pretty depressing.
I bitched and moaned to Steady Eddie about it, and that just brought up in stark relief the differences in our personalities and our wants for the future. I really want people, friends, things to do other than just he and I finding things to do. I'm extroverted by nature, and not having something to do with friends has been hard. And, friends just aren't important to him. He's fine with just me and caring about me. That's not enough, though. It's not comfortable to me. It's kind of boring. And it's been part of why he and I are moving towards being just friends...
Working on my own, at home, for almost three years, has been hard. I feel like I've lost social skills, that I'm just getting geekier and weirder and everything's like business networking without a personal connection...
And I never really saw adults making friends. My parents didn't have friends. So, just hanging out with Steady Eddie seems natural--except we should have some little hostage hanging around, which we don't, which is a good thing.
So, I'm looking at my life, and I know things have to change. Steady Eddie and I, though therapy, have realized that we're just not meant to be a married couple. That we are each other's very best friends. I think that's great--the funny thing about it is that we've been trying to be "normal" about the whole thing, and in that, I've discovered how I've had very interesting and non-normal relationships with guy friends over the years. In fact, some of my closest friends have been my guy friends more than my girl friends. The whys and hows of that don't really matter. It's just the way I am. And while Steady Eddie and I have been breaking up, I've been remembering all these different friendships and they've become a template for how things are playing out between us.
I couldn't live without him, really. He's like a brother, in some ways. He's taken the place of my blasted family and honestly, I think he cares more for me than they ever did--even though he and I do not have enough in common for us to be married...
So, I'm sitting here thinking about how I'm going to make friends--what I should do. Should I move to Boston or L.A. or S.F. or some other place where I know people? Should I stay here, join a church, try to connect with people here? Is it time I start dating again? Am I even in good enough shape to date and have it be a good experience?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I know that I'm really scared. I was in the past, when I went through periods where friends drifted away or I was alone for other reasons. I know I probably felt the fear before, but I never acknowledged it, nor tried to do something about it. I probably did something to get beyond it, but things are different when you're a young person among many other young people without partners. Now, in adulthood, when so many are married, I have no idea how I'm supposed to do things. I still seem to make friends with men, but I wonder the appropriateness of this in middle age. I worry about these things more than I used to.
Perhaps it's just getting older and not really wanting to be in this space at this age--having to worry and go out and make new friends. I wonder what I'll have in common with other people, if I'll have to hide who I am in order to fit in, if I need to be in other environments where there are people like me.
There are so many unanswerables. The only answerable is that I have to summon up the courage--the intestinal fortitude, to do this friend-making thing. I can sit here letting things go on the way they are--with few connections other than Steady Eddie. I find myself sitting around missing people, with a belly-full of regrets over what left my life years ago. I just do not want to live that way--worrying about old life paths left behind and what could have been because there's nothing being and becoming now in my life.
Maybe this is just a fallow field time in the friendship cycle. I know some of that comes from neglect, from focusing on career. I have trouble with balance, that's for sure. So, it's trying to have balance...
and that's so hard when the career's only partly established....
but how long do I have to wait for things to be good enough. I waited too long for children. I can't have no courage and wait too long for things to change on the friend front. Steady Eddie's not going to help me there. I have to do it myself, that's for sure....
and it's a lot to do...
and very scary...
posted by Tish Grier at 8:41 AM
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