This might be a long one. I have a lot to do in a paper-worky way and I want to alternate all the Things with journaling in case I don't have time starting next week. Which...I probably won't. This time off has been nice.
Friends have kind of been on my mind lately. How to make them, keep them. Why am I not good at that, etc. And I got referred for neuropsych testing (finally! After all these years!) so maybe that will shed some more light on What My Various Deals Are. But...yeah. Every time I think about reaching out to the friends I have in the area I'm met with this sense of myself being not-enough, or there not being enough time, or as, The Linda Lindas say in one of their songs, "Making plans feels like a living hell". But why, tho'? There's a part of my brain that says, "Water the grass that you want to grow", which is generally good advice.
However, if I look at the timeline, my now-friendships look like sending Instagram posts to each other, texting but then not texting back or making plans because I think I'm just being used to get to an estranged daughter rather then being an actual...friend. Getting together for dinners every so often (which is nice!) ...but not feeling like I can reciprocate because of the truly staggering amounts of alone time I need to feel okay-ish, the social pull of my daughter's gregariousness, and the emotional labor of my parents and in-laws as well as the sticky nature of my relationship in which have couple friends has been a little complex. And now it's more complex still with the Ways he (S) feels about Men. Which...does that make sense? There's a lot of shame. A lot of complexity. A lot of fatigue. A lot of splinters of identity, so I don't know where to start or end, what to disclose, what to relate to. And humans have to have roles to play, I think. Groups have very specific dynamics. And my cursed need for harmony wants to douse it in gasoline and light in on fire at the slightest hint of conflict or disingenuousness.
If I pull it back further I had to make myself little rotating schedules of time to spend with friends. I had a system and that's how I hung out with people. Very seldom have I had a "drop by anytime" type relationship with anyone. Too much shame, I guess? Being unsure of social convention? This was compounded by some things that happened with K soon after I moved up here. And then there's the notion of parallel play being the way in which I'm most comfortable making friends and hanging out with people (for the most part). We need to be working, dancing, or hiking - just doing something to make it work.
Back further (to Arizona), I think it felt a little better being unstructured, but there was still an element of doing with not being with. Pulling it back even further to college, I don't know how many people I was actually friends with in college. M, for sure. J for sure. My roommate? B? Almost none of the people I danced with (save M). I just...couldn't feel connected, I guess. I don't know that I really made friends at work, either. But I'm Facebook friends with a lot of people? I was allowed to be places and with people, but I was always hard to get to know. I recall even having a conversation with my first boyfriend about how I don't think there's very much to know. Like...what do you mean you want to get to know me? I can't sum it up for you neatly. Eventually I got a narrative going because it became clear that this question of "WHO ARE YOU"? was a recurring expectation. But, how true was it? It wasn't untrue, but it wasn't accurate, if that makes sense. We cannot really know each other. We are each unknowable. That is the nature of existence and perception. And that's pretty obvious. And kind of spectrum-y/BPD, no?
What was I...oh - right. I remember attachment to friends being easier in childhood. I also remember pretty clearly (I think? Caveat here that memory is trash, forgetting is part of memory. This is all conjecture, in a way, as all memories are.) times when I would attach to people who didn't like each other and that being profoundly painful to me. I would try to push them together and they wouldn't like it and I would feel kind of affronted that they didn't like each other. How very dare you not see the value in each other! I also remember trying to mediate between two girls I'd just met at a church I went to once and never went to again because I just couldn't handle disharmony and had this perception that it was my job to solve the problem. Eventually I came to a place where I felt physically hurt, kind of, when people didn't like me. And honestly, what do you say to a kid when that happens? Sure, maybe they're jealous. Sure, maybe they're missing out. But honestly - when it's happening to you - maybe you feel like, oh. They see me for I really am. And they hate it. And I'm just...sad about that. And I kind of didn't then believe in the impossibility of getting along with everyone. Even though it's just that - an impossibility.
Oh and those two girls? Were kind of making fun of me for trying to help them. Suck a d*ck, Paris, TX.
All that to say this is a little on the nose, but I'm here for it.
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