All I've been watching lately is Sex and the City because my tv shows are all on vacation, or something, and nothing is on really. I just saw the episode before Carrie meets Jack Burger (who after re-watching is so needy and annoying it's ridiculous, he has no self-confidence it's laughable) and she admits at her book launch party that she is really lonely to Miranda. That's me, minus the book launch party.
It's a combination of a lot of things. In no particular order: having to rely on my Dad when my heat doesn't work and feeling like the daughter who won't ever grow up and be independent, having nothing to do last Thursday night and waiting for it to be 8:00 so I could go to bed at a semi-normal bedtime without feeling like a total loser, being single for five years, friends who all have significant others, going from a job where I had a great group of colleagues who became really good friends to a job where I have colleagues who are great, but not really my friends....and did I mention being single for five years? Yeah.
I think it's really been the change in jobs which has brought this to the surface. Lunch time used to be the highlight of the day, probably just like for the kids. We would laugh, yell at each other, make fun of each other, get mad at each other and everything in between, including a chair or two being thrown, but it was awesome. Now I eat lunch alone in my classroom because the teacher's room is just too serious for my liking. They talk about school policy, students violating the plagiarism rule, town politics- all great topics every once in a while, but not something I really want to talk about on my 20 minute break from the kids. So after a few attempts at eating in the teacher's room, I just stay in my room. I actually never really leave my classroom except to make copies or occasionally visit. I know I'm not making enough of an effort here.
So when you take away those friend interactions that I had on a regular basis both inside and out of school, I've been relying on my core group of old friends more than I have in the past. Which isn't their fault. They're awesome. I don't get to see them as much as I'd like though. It's a bunch of factors, me being available more than before, us all being super busy, and I don't want to use this as a factor but it is, they all have significant others which takes up a huge chunk of their time- as they should! It most certainly should! I totally get that. I feel like the balance is off-kilter because I don't have someone to spend that "other" time with, which would take a lot of pressure of my friends. Does that make sense?
Take for instance, my birthday last weekend. A lot of friends couldn't make it for a variety of reasons. Relatively understandable. The hard part for me when stuff like that happens is that sometimes I feel like I put in more effort than I feel like people are investing in me. My friends are all I have. I don't have anyone else as a "default" to celebrate things with, be sad about things with, run errands with, go shopping with- they're it. Which is an unfair amount of pressure on them. I definitely see and know that. It's not fair to them at all. But to use the phrase I hate more than anything else in the world- it is what it is- I have more time for them than they have for me.
I feel like this sounds super selfish and childish. Like a spoiled little girl. But it doesn't change that it's how I feel.
That's also why I think I've been relying on a guy friend of mine probably more than I should. We used to joke that we were each other's "interim" boyfriend/girlfriend. Someone to hang out with, go out to eat with etc. in between significant others. Problem is that has gotten a bit more complicated as of late, and again, because I seem to have more "down time" than I did before, it's on my mind more than it probably would have been before. But also in my defense, the context of our friendship has changed since summer, so that's also playing a factor.
Or maybe I'm just too much in my own head and it's because it's December, way too snowy for my liking and freezing that I'm stuck inside over analyzing shit? Winter blues?
Does anyone else find this time of year extra trying? Am I overreacting? In desperate need of sun and warmth? Thoughts? Feel free to put on your honestpants and give me your two cents!
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