I know my family loves me. But they don't understand everything I'm going through. I'm not sure I can tell them everything without upsetting them or making them feel a need to "help" by creating a "teaching moment".
I have close friends who I think would drop everything to be there in my time of real need, yet they all have important things going on this weekend, and I don't want to complicate their lives with my little super-depression. I know it's a matter of bad timing and geographical distance, but I just want to be comforted but don't know who can possibly comfort me tonight.
The person who has been one of my main go-to people and in whom I was really emotionally invested is now someone I can't be around due to complications in our friendship. The trigger for my emotional collapse tonight is that I just called for an indefinite "break" for my own sanity and the good of the friendship, if it's to continue. As I drove away, I felt a brief moment of confidence and strength that I would be better off for this, followed by a meltdown upon the renewed sense that it felt like "goodbye", not "I'll see you later". I'm mildly relieved to be distanced from the stresses of the friendship but mourning the loss of the plans we'd made which will not happen and of what the friendship used to be but honestly will probably never be again, angry at myself for not cutting it off when I knew I should have. Next time, I won't postpone the inevitable (this always felt somewhat inevitable), even to "spare" someone's feelings or reassure them that I'm not bailing on the friendship.
I'm jobless, I've largely withdrawn from the organization into which I've poured a lot of my energy over the past two years, and I don't know what to do next. I'm directionless. I don't want to stay here. But I don't want to go back to Idaho or Washington, either. I don't know where to go. I can't run away, and in a way, I don't even want to run away. Staying with the one or two friends who have been a stable presence in my life here feels like the only thing I have to hold on to right now. I don't know if I want to go to school. I think I do, but I don't know what program still. Will that ever change? I feel like I don't know anything at all anymore.
I'm lonely. I don't know if I'll ever be loved the way I want to be loved by the person I want to love me. And I don't know if I'll ever love someone the way they deserve to be loved. Will it ever be a true two-way street? I know there's happiness without such a relationship, but this is one of those rare moments when I feel utterly sad and alone because the prospects look so bleak in that regard. All I can do is focus on loving the way I would want to be loved, treating others the way I would like to be treated, though that's not comforting here and now. I don't know if my match even exists at my age. I don't know if I'm capable of a "real" relationship, but I deeply want that kind of intimacy and companionship. I'm not interested in playing around. While everyone else seemingly goes off in search of the fun and exciting world of sex and passing romance, I want more. I'm ready for more. At least I feel ready. I'm just not sure what kind I want...or from whom. I do believe close friendships are enough to get me through and support me and help me grow, but I just can't believe anything is so fulfilling, rich, and progress-inducing as a marriage relationship (i.e. committed, monogamous, lifetime relationship).
Those with whom I identified most fully in matters of faith and ways of dealing with conflicting desires and beliefs have mostly changed or shifted their song and gone one way or another, leaving me alone, again, in the middle ground where nobody stays for long. I'm too prudish for many. I'm too liberal for many others. I think I confuse people with my seemingly paradoxical, dichotomous nature, but that's OK 'cause they confuse me, too. It's lonely where I am, and I'm beginning to think it's time to test the extremes a little more, but that doesn't feel like "me", so I probably won't.
I feel like I am nobody's favorite. Not the way I want to be. Not those whose favorite I want to be. But then, is there anyone who is confident they're my favorite? I mean, we all take turns being each other's "favorite", and part of quality relationships is being able to drop everything for someone who's an important part of your life even if they're not your most exciting current relationship. And I hear myself saying "I'm nobody's favorite", and I know that's not entirely true, and it's whiny crap. But it's how I feel. Feelings aren't always rational. Damn them.
I feel alone in many principles. I feel like the only people who share certain principles have conviction I no longer feel or life situations that make it "easy" to hold onto those principles, and those who feel as doubtful as I am about certain matters of "faith" have set aside the principles I, for some reason, hold on to. I feel like nobody my age who is single still values sexual restraint. They all experience what I want to do but won't, and they seem to adopt a reckless arrogance about it. Many of those who are as restrained as I am seem a bit emotionally constipated. Are there others? Maybe it really is time to find different circles of friends, but that's not exactly helping my feelings of loneliness right now either.
So here I am, bereft of a friendship that I valued but which turned sour, trying not to give up on it entirely, devoid of most social productivity in the academic or industrial sense, watching everyone around me enter into new romantic relationships, advance in their careers, raise children...and I'm feeling like a useless mess of a human being. There's not much anyone can do, I don't think, to console me. But not having someone to "go home to" and cry on is really hard on me anyway.
Hm, I'm realizing that I feel this way briefly after just about every "breakup". Maybe I'm letting the relationship "failure" affect my entire self image. But I have to say, it's really hard this time because of my recent unemployment, lesser involvement with the nonprofit, the need to move because I can't keep paying rent...it's all compounding in a really big, ugly disaster.
The intensity will pass, and friends will become available again and will be there for me. I know that. I will probably call my mom when I'm done writing this so she doesn't freak out when she reads it. *wink* Sometimes, I think it's valuable to record these thoughts while they're raw to use as a catalyst when I have my energy back and feel like I can do something to avoid ending up in this situation again. Perhaps it seems odd or inappropriate to some of you that I'm posting something so personal publicly, and perhaps in my effort to be more open and "authentic", I go overboard sometimes, but sometimes, I think there's value in revealing one's pain and failure and not hiding the fact that we all have really, really crappy days sometimes. Maybe I'm just so tired of other people putting on happy faces to hide their pain that I'm overcompensating by broadcasting mine. Or maybe I'm just being silly. That's entirely possible, too.
Alright, I now have plans to get me out of the house and distracted with some non-drama friends, and I'm going to call Mom on the way downtown so she knows not to overreact and have me committed for a suicide watch. I feel more in control, more calm again...hopefully it lasts.
