Lost Among Friends

Wrapping pigs in a blanket

Thumbnail: Washing beaters
Thumbnail: cantaloupe seeds
Thumbnail: Making French toast
Thumbnail: Thick cut maple bacon
Thumbnail: Pouring smoothies
Thumbnail: Cooked waffles
Thumbnail: Cheesecake
Thumbnail: Cooked pigs
Thumbnail: French toast
Thumbnail: Cantaloupe slices
 

Sunday pot luck brunch was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent this week­end; instead of head­ing to Tim’s, I was at Pat and Jen’s. It was col­lec­tion time for a sit-up com­pe­ti­tion (where Julie destroyed every­one in both the largest total sit-ups and most improved over the last two months, win­ning $60), and we decid­ed to get togeth­er to see how every­one was feel­ing, per­haps com­pare a six-pack or two.

There were home­made waf­fles, fresh fruit, hon­ey bacon, French toast, pigs in blan­kets, smooth­ies, crois­sants, and cheese­cake. So much deli­cious food that I could eat, now that I’m on med­ica­tion to con­trol food induced flare-ups, and I hap­pi­ly gorged myself.

Waffle with fruit

It was such a lazy Sunday. Long con­ver­sa­tions sit­ting around the table, then hang­ing out and play­ing games for hours while the food digest­ed.

Pat lat­er told me he used to come here and read about what’s hap­pen­ing with me, but has stopped read­ing alto­geth­er. The rea­son — and he paused as he was telling me this so that I under­stood the grav­i­ty of it — was that he would rather hear things from me per­son­al­ly.

While this is far from the first time I’ve writ­ten about my friend­ship with him, it still amazes me. We rarely get any one-on-one time, even when I’m over at his house on the week­ends for food and con­ver­sa­tion, unless it’s on the phone.

Pat always takes such a con­cern about what’s going on in my life. He asks all the right ques­tions. He lis­tens whole­heart­ed­ly with­out inter­rupt­ing. He nev­er judges me. He calms me because every­thing he says makes so much sense. Just being able to open up, where I’m vul­ner­a­ble, and have him com­plete­ly accept what I’m say­ing makes me over­flow with emo­tion.

Maybe I just need some­one to under­stand me right now.

Self portrait

I think I’m going through a peri­od where I’m not get­ting enough social inter­ac­tion. My friends are too busy, or our sched­ules don’t work out. It’s left me con­fused and dis­il­lu­sioned.

Everyone seems to fit some­where, but I’m not sure where that leaves me. On days like this, when I’m sur­round­ed by peo­ple, it makes me think that per­haps I still don’t know where I belong.

9 comments

  1. The thing you have to realise is that you do have peo­ple that care for you as friends. Sometimes that thought alone is enough to get you through your day. You can’t blame your­self or your life or the lives or oth­ers if you aren’t get­ting enough social inter­ac­tion in your life because life gets in your way.

    It hap­pens, and it’s left to us to deal with it while con­stant­ly remind­ing our­selves what would our friends actu­al­ly say in times of our need.

    At the end of the day, it does­n’t stop me from blog­ging my thoughts because maybe unlike what you have, I don’t have peo­ple drop­ping by ask­ing me how I’m going in life, will­ing to lis­ten to what­ev­er is trou­bling me, regard­less of whether it’s online or real life.

    So in my case, I realise I don’t fit in any­where I go. So it’s up to me to do some­thing about it and build a world I can fit in, even if it’s one per­son at a time.

    • Yours (and mine) are not a pleas­ant real­i­ties to acknowl­edge. I guess I need to get used to it.

      • I don’t mind acknowl­edg­ing or fac­ing to the real­i­ty of what I expe­ri­ence, even if it is a per­cep­tion of real­i­ty. Running away from it won’t solve the prob­lem. I know I want to be hap­py, if I can do that in the face of my own dark­ness, it’s worth a try to do some­thing about it.

      • I feel like you’re a much stronger per­son than I am, some­one much wis­er and expe­ri­enced in these mat­ters of lone­li­ness. It takes a lot of strength and resolve to accept such things, and it seems like even though you may strug­gle with it your­self, you know what needs to be done, where­as I’m still fig­ur­ing this out.

  2. Everyone seems to fit some­where, but I’m not sure where that leaves me. On days like this, when I’m sur­round­ed by peo­ple, it makes me think that per­haps I still don’t know where I belong.”
    — exact­ly the same feel­ing i had when i was over my friend’s apart­ment the oth­er night.. maybe it’s sup­posed to be that way..
    .. so yeah, you’re not the only one who does­n’t know where you belong…

    • It’s very hard for me to accept that “it’s sup­posed to be that way”. I don’t want to believe it, and think there’s some­thing I can do about it. But some­times I do real­ize that it’s out of my con­trol.

  3. hey did you ever get around to tast­ing that cheese­cake? I tried some­thing new and I don’t even know if it was any good!!

    • Not yet…I bought a bunch of cin­na­mon raisin buns that were get­ting stale, but I’ll be eat­ing the cheese­cake as soon as I’m fin­ished those. You should have saved a piece for your­self! Or you can just try it next time you’re at my place. :D

  4. I agree with Pat. Same rea­son I stopped read­ing friend’s jour­nals con­stant­ly. I find that part of friend­ship, is the actu­al act of lis­ten­ing and know­ing that they spent time lis­ten­ing back.

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