Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Morning thoughts

I'm sitting in bed all snug and warm on this pleasantly chilly morning.  I watched the Middle for the week and I decided I'd linger here through one episode of the Waltons.  I'm enjoying my daily marathon.  I find it's very quiet and peaceful watching the Waltons. It's slow and I can often accomplish other things while it's on.  

I'm watching an episode of the Waltons where Yancy has been put in jail because he may have shot someone.  Instead of being upset he is ok with being in jail. He knows he didn't shoot the guy, he knows there is no proof. His community comes to see him in jail and brings him food and he has a warm place to sleep.  He says there is a worse place to spend the Depression and everything will work out sooner or later.  mike lives by this philosophy a lot.  I wish I was as good at waiting for things to work out as he is.  I fret and I stew over things.  I worry and then everything works out, just like Mike and God promise and then I feel silly.  

Today on my facebook post memories something came up a thing I saw on Dr. Oz last year (when I was sick like I have been this week—funny about the timing.  Must be that ragweed time of year again ). It was about how girlfriends are so important and how we should hang out with our girlfriends every week.  I admit to missing a little girlfriend time.  It occurred to me that in the first year of marriage, it has been completely normal to only hang out with mike...and I have...and I haven't missed having friends much to do things with. But over the last month I have noticed myself opening up more to making new friends. I have had friends this last year, but suddenly I'm starting to crave that time I hadn't had with my friends again.  I believe this is good, and normal and I'm glad to see us both moving this direction.  Michael has gone fishing today with his buddy.  I had hoped to go trail riding with someone today but my riding friends had to work and honestly I have stuff I need to accomplish here. It's funny (and I digress) but I'm not good at being useful and doing my own thing when Mike is here at home. I want to hang out where he is and I often wander off of my many tasks.  

I have been thinking about the sense of community that is lost with today's social media. People mistakenly think that their social needs are fulfilled by posting and reading facebook.  We text, but we don't talk. I don't call people like I might because I know I'm chatty and I'm respecting other's desire to not be so chatty.  I find myself wanting the closeness to pal around with a gf but then I also know that we aren't children anymore and we don't have that kind of time.  I have made a few closer friends here and I am so happy that I have. My church has been awesome and I feel more and more welcome each week. 

 All this said when I look back at old facebook memories I still have regrets for the people I have lost. I will name them and hope that maybe someday they will come around and we can talk out our differences.  I miss that Christa and I used to be best friends. I introduced her to her husband. Things didn't go the way I expected and I was sometimes unhappy with the direction they were going. I've been really sad that they no longer live here and that I no longer get to see her but I see how happy she is and that's all I have ever wanted for her.  I know I have not always been the friend she needed, but she has not always been the friend I needed either. I think it's time to just move on and find a new path and I realize that may be without this friend that I hold dear and miss, but that may be how it is.  

Another is Kricket...I have no idea what happened there. We traveled together and we had a lot of fun. Then one day I was unfriended and no longer talks to me.  Well, I have some idea and it's nothing I can control so I had to let it go.  It seems like it all started one February day when all my friends went riding while I was gone.  Even Kricket who doesn't really hang out with that crowd.  After that weekend that group had kicked me off the island.  At the time I was so hurt and so angry. When I tried to discuss it with someone in the group I was told they could do what they wanted and didn't need my permission.  At the time I was so hurt and angry and I tried so hard to talk to people about it, but no one was talking.  It has been 18 months so now I'm ready to let it go, come clean and just shed those who have hurt me. I can look back and see both sides a little more, but I still scoff at some of the stories I have heard said about why they quit talking to me.  Things like, they needed to take time for themselves and I was being too emotionally needy.  Truth was, I was pretty happy and having fun and I was talking to them about the fun and my galavanting.  True, the people I galavanted with turned out to be losers, but for the most part I was just sewing some wild oats.  The truth is that many of these people liked what I could do for them. When I moved on in life I wasn't as useful.  I was physically further away. I was making my own way. I was being selfish and thinking of myself.  I admit to all these things. I became free to truly be me and maybe that wasn't as likable to those folks as the old me had been. 

 I finally snapped and quit caring this summer when the group had a party. They invited my child to their party. They invited everyone under the sun to their party but conspicuously left me out.  I was so angry and so hurt.  Honestly I wouldn't have gone anyway as I had other plans, but just the idea that they had included Maggie but not me was just a little too much.  It finally made me realize that the more you do for some people the less they appreciate and care about you.  One of the people had stopped being my friend because she says I told her secrets.  I have told her over and over that I didn't and I don't even know which 'secrets' I supposedly told...I have also been told that "everyone" knows these secrets so they clearly aren't secret anymore.  I don't even know who I supposedly spilled the beans too.  The worst part about  all this is that they have chosen this woman that they have known for just a few years over me, who they have known much longer. I came to realize that if this group of people could truly believe these awful things about me (and there were so many things that they thought and gossiped about that I still can hardly believe it) that I had no desire to be in the group anymore.  (Insert words to the song "somebody that I used to know " here). I finally unfollowed them all from Fb b/c I just don' want to see posts about how they are the three musketeers or how witty and funny they all think they are.  My life has become infinitely more peaceful as I carry on my existence and don't consider them in my days.  I would never dream of burdening these folks with personal thoughts or intimate feelings since they consider me such an emotional burden.  It's funny BC I was an emotional wreck for close to 8 or the last 10 years and these folks were my friends through a large chunk of it. then I got out and got happy and then I became the emotional burden.  Maggie always used to say that she could tell that because we were all so tight and loved each other so much that the fall was going to be ugly.  And it was.  

I have hesitated to write about any of this because I didn't want to give those folks the satisfaction of knowing they'd hurt me or upset me. But I realized that until I committed it to "paper" I wouldn't be completely free of it.  Writing this has been cathartic and has helped me remove the last vestiges of anger and longing. I have regret that we are no longer friends, but it's more of a function of them and not me. I never left. They walked away.  It makes me sad because I really loved them and I never intentionally did anything to hurt any of them. 

This weekend I'm doing something I have always wanted to do and something my friend Silke has always wanted to do.  We are going to the beach to ride horses with another couple who also rides.  Silke is cooking up a mess of food and we are going to have such a good time. The weather is going to be in the 80's so not too hot and not too cold.  I am pretty sure that I am taking Joe Bob this weekend. I figure that though he is tall, he will be more comfortable to sit on bareback. I found out he's never been to the beach but that he loves the water.  

Of course, I need to get moving on this day so I can accomplish something so I guess that I will wrap it up.  I have a small list of things to do. I want to clean up my office and ready the space so I can do some fall sewing projects. I need to feed the horses and the cow and pack my clothes for my trip to the beach.  We leave on Friday at nine.  

Bandit says hello. Silly schnauzer face...




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