A hard truth is still a truth. I’m trying very hard to remember and embrace that right now as my life continues contracting. (It strikes me as a very stoic-like idea, reminding me that I need to revisit stoicism as it may be a source of strength for me right now when I desperately need it.)
It’s been a few weeks since I really talked to or spent time with anyone except the people with whom I share an office. Since I’ve stopped doing nearly everything in my relationships most of them have ceased to exist. Once I stopped spending my money, putting forth my energy, planning nearly every encounter, the people in my life disappeared just as abruptly as the music stops when you stop turning the handle. I understand and embrace the fundamental truth that relationships take work just like everything else worth having. But there should be some sort of parity, a give-and-take. Not balance or equality but serious effort made by both parties. I wanted so badly to have a normal life that it took me quite a while to recognize that things were wrong, that I was only buying time with people who scarcely reciprocated.
So I’ve stopped doing that. And it confirms my instincts that most of these people don’t even notice my absence. They’re not bad people, I don’t think. Just…not my friends. That’s a hard truth but it’s still a truth. That’s what I’m telling myself to try to dull the aching, wrenching disappointment of having deluded myself for so long and allowing myself to be deluded.
So now I start over. I think. I just don’t know how. It’s desperately, heartbreakingly sad to be forced to admit at 31 that you don’t know how to make friends and apparently don’t know how to recognize them, either.
Sometimes I Know Who I Am 