I don’t have a lot of friends. Of those I do have, I don’t orbit any very closely. It is lonely

I have been close to a friend most of our lives. When he was young, I’d tease him incessantly. After college he was an adult, and our relationship had to shift. We have stayed close for a very long time. He dated and married a marvelous girl.

They used to throw a lot of parties, and I would attend religiously. Really, they were the only parties I would go to other than two or three family functions during the holidays.

They got married, cut back on the parties. They had a kid – and I thought for a year and a half that the reason I wasn’t being invited was because of my work schedule, and I’d chastise them – you know, hey, even though we both know I probably can’t show up, I’d like to be invited.

Well… It turns out I have been unwelcome to attend their parties.

I asserted this to my friend. When he got back to me that night, he both confirmed it and redirected. I didn’t want to have “the discussion” in the evening, it would upset me and I’d lose sleep over it. Not only that, but the discussion is kind of pointless – I don’t really want to know. If they started inviting me again, I still wouldn’t feel welcome, and I wouldn’t show up – and since that is true hashing it out won’t accomplish anything but pain. What good is pain without some kind of growth?

At the very least I wish they could have told me a year and a half ago so I wouldn’t have to have felt newly hurt every time I saw photos of their parties on facebook which I hadn’t been invited to.

I took it one step further – I changed the subject and chatted with my friend for a while on another topic, business as usual. I did it specifically to put him at ease. Ironically, I have no intention of telling him that I intend to just silently sever ties and slip in to the void.

I know – Pot. Kettle. Black.

Not including mom, that was my closest orbit. snip. Thank god I have the trail to look forward to – without it I’d surely be daydreaming about self harm for longer than the half day I did.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a bit low due to this – but I think another reason the lowest spot didn’t last so long is because a few things happened which reminded me that even though I don’t get to see them, I do have a few friends still. Alex gave me several hours of his time setting up thoughtthru.com. Teresa seems really interested in helping me take my journal content and editing it in to a cohesive story. Holly is the nearest friend physically, and the only one I see every week or two. I’m sure I’ll talk about her enough in the future. KC got engaged on Sunday. I am so happy for her! I am so jealous that it didn’t work out that way between us. There are others, but of course I didn’t write this earlier when I was thinking about them.

52 days to trail baby!