Inaccesible
At some point, and I have no idea when, I stopped being the accessible friend. I am not blaming anybody but myself, but I have to admit that within the last month or so, it has become more and more obvious. People I have known most of my adult life are not telling me things. Not just run of the mill things, but LIFE ALTERING THINGS that happened to them months ago. And yet I am the second, third, fourth, LAST to know. I am not going to pretend that I am always the most accessible. I have a two year old and that limits my ability to just drop everything. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t. AND that certainly doesn’t mean that I won’t. And yet…there is the possibility that I built this “everything is fine” cocoon around me, and people are hesitant to cross that. But COME ON PEOPLE! I can’t say it doesn’t hurt when I discover that you had PPD or were dealing with an hormonal imbalance or were trying to get pregnant and I didn’t know anything about it. I am starting to wonder if these friendships are more important to me than they are to the people I so desperately cling to. I also wonder if I checked out when I got married and had a child, and that I may not be able to repair the damage.
I don’t feel like I am a judgmental person, I don’t feel like people should be afraid/ashamed to tell me things. I also feel like I can be trusted. If you want something to be a secret, I can keep it. (And trust me, there are people who can attest to that.) So, why am I sitting her whining? I miss the friends I had in Colorado. I have made friends in NJ, but it’s different, and I am not sure why. But, I idolized what I had here, and when I return I always assume that all those friendships would just go back where I left off. And yet…
This just reiterates that my loneliness in NJ isn’t just because I moved. But, because I moved, people stopped considering me someone they could talk to, confide in, relate to. And now I am feeling even more lonely, because all the things I look forward to are gone, and just coming back to the place doesn’t mean coming back to the feeling and the idea.
To all those friends that I let down, I am sorry. I am sorry that I got so caught up in my own life you felt like you couldn’t tell me about yours. I am sorry if I ever made you feel like I would judge you or criticize you in any way for the decisions you have made. And I am sorry if I didn’t share enough of my faults and failings to make you feel like you could share yours. I can and will do better if you let me. Please don’t cancel me out of your life. I will be there, no questions asked.
I have alway tried to be a good friend. And, I am, like everyone else on the planet, fallible. But I can’t say that it doesn’t hurt to discover that the friendsips that I hold most dear, are more important to me than to others. I am open to suggestions, please let me know what I could do better, and I will. Just, don’t give up on me. I am lost, but that doesn’t mean that I am lost forever.