Monday, August 27, 2012

The suck sucks.

"Embrace the suck, for the suck is part of the process" - AJ Jacobs, Real Simple, May 2012
I literally JUST read this line in an article about being creative and how that prolongs mental acuity, and had to stop to brain-dump. I've been stewing on things for several days. And I don't like what I've recognized. 

I have royally screwed up on something very important to me. And I managed to blindside myself with it to boot. It's been a long time coming, and I was oblivious to it till it was too late to save as much of it as I could have. Of course, anyone who knew me from childhood knows I take comfort and refuge in my oblivion, as I'm painfully aware of so many other things that spurn any number of thoughts and emotions.

What have I killed? My relationships with people who aren't in my face daily, or live in my computer. Therein lies my problem. My most valuable connections have become those that live online. It started when I found out my friend was given a proverbial death-sentence a few months ago. For the record, she's still defying those doctors, albeit not quite as feistily as she has in the past. I learned via her blog, a few days after her post. It wasn't via phone, in person, or heck, even a private message on crackbook. Ouch. I'd made myself unavailable and less present in her life, and learned this detail like pretty much everyone else did.

Then, I decided that with the first day of school, I should celebrate the quiet my days can have between the schlepping tasks that I mourn having to do. I posted a "hey let's do a woohoo/boohoo coffee at my house", and 99% of the responses came from people who live in my computer and so many miles away that it requires days in a car, or boarding a plane and me schlepping them from the airport for the visit to happen. One person made it, one person was on the way out the door when something came up, one person simply had too many things for her own family to do she couldn't come. Everyone else was either working, or doesn't see me as important in their life to come join me. I haven't made efforts, why should they, right?

OUCH.

I reasoned that I'd deferred my social life to my husband's school schedule, need for study and homework time that didn't involve also minding his spawn so I could be the social butterfly. That's only partially accurate. A part of it is also fiscal. That mom-bus is not the beacon of fuel efficiency, and with all the driving that I *must* do for my family of 6, there comes a point that I fail to muster the wherewithal to do any driving if I even wanted to do it. Plus, given the unemployment/underemployment of our lives the last couple years, I simply couldn't afford the 60 mile round trip to the yarn shop, 16, 20 or 60 to a friend's house when I have to spare the wear & tear, and fuel just get where I must be.

Honestly though, the larger blame falls squarely on MY shoulders. I could have picked up the phone. I could have dragged the toddler with me, and shortened the visits according to the toleration she or my friends demonstrated with the situation. I relied too heavily on a virtual connection to people, and my personal connections fell by the wayside.

So now, I have almost zero turnout to an invitation, I get a cool reception when I try to join a conversation at church with people who were happy to see me 2 years ago, I find friends from church have ended the virtual friendship online after other friends were strongly disagreeing with what was said on the internet. I apologized to the now-unfriended friend, but I think that relationship is soured terribly over it. And I'm the loser in it all. She's an awesome person. And then I had NO idea she had some major and scary health issues involving surgery. No one tells me anything anymore, and that hurts too. I do care, but my actions state otherwise apparently. Again, that was my mistake, and I failed them and myself.

I have friends who have moved into another circle that I doubt I'll ever join, simply because my kids probably won't be attending the parish school. These families post pictures of communal activities, and I think "wow, that looked like fun", and then the sour "would have been nice to be invited". And I look, and everyone present has a child at the school. I understand that they're connected that way, and I hold no ill regard for it. But in at least the 2 parishes where I've been for more than a few months or years, I see it every time. I am (or at least was) friends with some of these people prior to their joining that club of school parents. It stings. I called a couple of them out on it about 5 years ago and was told it was imagined. Really? Then how about asking the people you know from church whose kids do NOT attend the parish school if they want to carpool to and from youth group meetings, or go sit at Starbucks or Panera while the kids are there, so we don't have to drive all the way back home or find something nearby to do so we can save the gas going home and coming back again 2 hours later. So far, none of them have. I'm not in their faces often enough to remind them that I want to have a friendship with them. And I don't want to be that annoying fly who keeps showing up and buzzing around unwanted. So I leave them alone more, furthering the chasm in our friendship.

The other night I told my husband that I basically left a friend whose husband deployed last year high and dry. When we learned of the impending orders, I told myself that I would make myself available to help her when ever I could, because she was amazingly available when Blur was a baby. I understood the stresses of deployment, having dealt with it myself when the boys were raucous preschoolers who drove me to want to drink (and I did). And what did I do? I figured that she was busy with work, baseball for her son, gymnastics for her daughter, had help from her mom, helped her mom with grandma, had come to rely on another friend whose kids went to the same school - and I left her alone. I was either afraid of imposing on her, or I was impeccable with the timing of a call (shower, bathroom, walking in to work, at the game...take your pick, I'm stellar with timing), or I was afraid to call and catch one of those moments. BIG OUCH. She's moved on to other friendships that don't include me. She's still happy to see me, but I don't know that our friendship is the same either.

I suck as a friend. I have long known this about myself, because of a genetic tendency to circle my wagons when certain kinds of chaos appear in my life. It's not entirely an acceptable excuse.
I'm sitting here with my eyes welling because I am mad at myself and, yes, even those I call friends, acquaintances, etc. Mostly I'm mad at myself. I've hurt myself, and my friends. And knowing that about myself sucks. I really DO value my friends, and the friendships I have with them. I just fail to show it. And I'm sorry. I need to call these people directly and apologize, but at the moment, this measly apology for the world to see online is all I can muster at this moment. I'm still raw and angry and hurt. And I know myself enough that I need to make peace with myself and this situation a little before I make those calls. I don't want to start out apologizing for being distant and unavailable, and end up unleashing on them, negating the apology by blaming them for their share of the chasm in our friendship.

So, if you're one of those friends I've let fall off my radar, or I've fallen of yours, I apologize. This is me attempting to embrace the suck that I've created, so I can try to figure out what to do next about any of it.

3 comments:

PT said...

First of all, you made me cry on a Monday. Suck. Second, I'm still crying. Double suck. If circumstances weren't what they are and all...

Kinda makes me want to say that whole party line of "excuses are like assholes..." until I realized that isn't how that line really goes.

I've asked you to lunch, you've said we hang...we get mired down in life. I'm just as guilty of circling my wagons.

Especially with this last round of life and the backstabbing of the mutual "acquaintances" which left me both physically and emotionally drained and scarred. I just don't want to get hurt again.

Since I don't want to cry anymore, and I am sure you are also a wonky, snotty mess, I will just leave it with...

I have gas. I have time. Maybe we should do lunch, or coffee, or just meet somewhere and connect. Ball's in your court.

You know who I am.

Feisty Irish Wench said...

Well, I was not trying to make anyone else cry. I was just spilling my brains because I don't have the guts yet to say even half of this to anyone in person - YET.

And yes, excuses and opinions are in the same line of thinking. They all stink.

Raevyn said...

First you need to forgive yourself for not being the friend you'd like to be for yourself, or them. Nobody's perfect, and at some point you have to accept that your friendships ARE going to change, and the circle of friends you have today may not be the same circle you have in a year, or two, or three, and that's ok. We all grow and change. Some people are in our lives for moments, others a lifetime.
Find something away from the computer that you enjoy, take the little ones to the park, or the library, it doesn't have to be expensive, maybe you'll find new folks to interact with, away from the computer.
One day at a time, but first, forgive yourself, then start working on the changes you want to make.