Since it is Sunday, I am tap these out on the laptop at home in my bed, and only get interrupted occasionally. People here are up and out of bed before noon today - who would have thought it? - simply because I wanted to some quiet time to write. When I want them to socialize with me (see last post) they are too tired or must stretch the week's small tasks into weekend tasks that support the agoraphobia.
Friendships. I have a few. By that I mean, I have people I know for whom I hold positive regard and enjoy time spent with them. However, I do not have a "best friend," or anyone to confide in (hence this blog is an insane ramble of vomited emotion, good times) that can listen without judging me harshly. There are people who I am sure could fulfill that role, but I haven't seen them in months or years. We keep in touch through facebook, basically. I am happy beyond belief that they exist at all, and would walk over hot coals for them. However, by the time I realized that the hot coal walking was needed, those coals would be ashes, because our communication is not immediate or daily.
So why do I not have friends? Well, friendship takes a time commitment, and I have to work long hours with no breaks, sick days or vacations. When I do get time, it is tiny increments and I am so exhausted that I just want to be alone to rest. Friends deserve more than I can give.
When I was young, I had no model for social boundaries of friendships. My mother had no friends. She was consumed by my father. My father had friends and as soon as he was finished with work he lit out for parts unknown to go fishing or hunting or gun shopping or motorcycle shopping with them. With my father gone, my mother would grade papers or watch television holed up in her room. I was not allowed to have peers inside the house. I call them peers, because kids my own age scared the shit out of me. (Come to find out later, it was a good thing. Every kid my age on the street where I grew up ended up in juvenile detention sooner or later. Some made it into a career gig up at various penitentiaries.) My sister had better luck with a younger crowd. In later elementary school years, I had one friend. I always went to her house, she never to mine. On my 11th birthday, my parents let me have 4 people over for a slumber party. One was mean to another, while the other two looked at me as if to say, "Oh hell, make it stop." My solution was to turn to the nastier of the two, the one who had instigated the petty nastiness, and say, "Stop being a bitch." Artful negotiator, I was!
Throughout puberty and high school, I made two more friends. Nothing major. They were good people. One disappeared from my life almost instantly. The one I do know the whereabouts? Also facebook friend.
Evil Kvetch: Alert: I can close my eyes and picture a some day. Some day I will have time for friends who come over for tea and share their work and their writing. Friends who can be supportive and not judge my awkwardness. For most people my age, they allude to this "some day" as retirement. Alas, at 43, I also have no retirement and see only that I will have to work at this pace until I die. Or until I am unable to drag my broken self to work 18 hours a day and I get slapped into the worst nursing home available, as I have no long term financial future or long term care possibilities either.
Best not to think about it. It only depresses me further. Best to instead pray for an instantaneous death while I am still able-bodied, right after payday, so my children will be able to survive another two weeks financially.
It's not like they could pack up and go to one of my friends' homes, is it?
To end this on an upbeat note:
I do want to introduce one of my old friends. She was of the furry variety, and could be very entertainingly rude (a quality I apparently adore in friends). She was wonderful and loyal and convinced me I could be a good mother.
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