Shades of Ourselves; Unformed Friendships

Shades of ourselves. Shades of others.

 We meet people and say things.  Try to get some point or another across while skipping over a thousand other equally important things.  No one will ever really know you but yourself.  We go through life trying to understand the people around us – impressions forming about those we meet – from the most limited of interactions.  It is like a figure giving off a hundred thousand shades of itself.  The figure is the mystery.  It will always be.  If I don’t ‘get’ me, who am I to ‘get’ you? 

 Sometimes I think that I don’t think/act/behave in a certain way that seems prevalent in those in life I encounter.  I don’t understand why people lie or deceive.  Oh, I understand the aggressive tendencies we have.  I understand OVER REACTING and being TACTLESS.  I understand saying something malicious as a defensive maneuver.  But why lie?  I watch so many around me fabricate these complicated entanglements for no clear-cut reason.  They seem to be stuck on dive and evade mode.  Is this a form of self preservation/protection.  Is the truth a place of vulnerability? 

I build my own type of walls.  I distance myself from others.  I have my intense lonely moments but always justify them with an inner desire to remain relatively solitary.  I think this ties into my sense of loyalty.  If I form an alliance, which for me constitutes anything more than a remote acquaintance, I give myself completely to it.  I will do anything for my family.  I am engaged and to be honest, (even as my sense of self rebels against my writing it…) I would do anything for him.  Maybe that’s why I don’t form true FRIENDSHIPS anymore.  In my youth I did.  And true to form, I would have done anything for them and expected the same in return.  Back then it didn’t dawn on me that we don’t all work in this all-or-nothing fashion.  I wound up hurt, used up and ditched.  They always lied too.  Time and time again until finally the point started to sink in. 

That was a long time ago.  I don’t have any steadfast reason for my lack of friendships these days.  I look to my parents (hell, anyone for that matter) and I see them surrounded by these beautiful, lasting friendships.  I understand that, at least in theory, I can form friendships without 1.becoming dependent on them and 2. investing too much in their worth.  In theory.  In the meanwhile I am sitting back from it all.  Searching for myself and what that means to me.  Learning to live honestly – especially with myself.  Trying to ‘get’ me (at least a little ;-) and perhaps at least a few of the shades I am casting.

 Listening to: several but at the moment: Goo Goo Dolls/”Black Balloon”.

A Scary Situation

Throughout my life I have been in various ’scary’ situations.  Situations when one thing or another has lead to some unsafe circumstance.  Why is it when someone we love is in such a situation it is SO MUCH WORSE?  The feeling of helplessness increases exponentially…but it’s more than that.  I can block out my own memories, fright/flight impulses – I can glaze over the top of them as only quasi-real moments in my life.  With someone I love it’s a different story.  There’s no forgetting.  It happened, it was scary, it was real, and it is not going away anytime soon. 

Some of The ‘Kids’

[EDIT][picture of cat's] hmm…the photo wouldn’t load as a reasonable size.  Have to work on that….

They always make me happy ;-)

Today was a good one.  C taught me to ride the 500 Polaris ATV [okay so I have the basics down, but apparently trying too go fast in a low gear is a major no no...], then we drove around going to fish stores.  This going to fish stores is something we do ALL THE TIME.  I know it’s a bit strange, but I love it.  It all started about a year ago when I told him I had an empty tank sitting at my parents.  I wasn’t sure if we had the room to set it up, plus I didn’t want to get stuck as the only one cleaning and taking care of it.  This could not be further from the truth.  That original tank was a 29 gallon.  We have since added a 110 and a 25 gallon to our collection [we live in a one bedroom apartment at present...].  Despite my hectic schedule and C’s on-call full time job, he always is on top of cleaning their tanks and bringing home feeders. 

Our other ‘kids’ include an Argus monitor, a green iguana, and Chaos and Psycho - our two cats.   Some may be a bit nicer than the others but in truth – we love them all ;-)

comments…

For some reason I have been a bit of a comment junkie of late.  Something to do with not wanting to deal with the minor details of my life – I have been scrolling through the blogs of others looking for ways to offer encouragement, hope, or anything I have to offer.  To me, it seems to have all the hallmark signs of an avoidance tactic.  [Don't deal with your own things, try to help someone else deal with there's...]

For better or for worse:

I came across a blog (online journal entry) in which a mother was desperate about her young son and his psychotic behavior.  (He had just decided to get married for the 2nd time..baby from 1st marriage at her house..misc details…).  The details are not important.  What I did want to share with you is the message I sent her – hoping to offer some glimmer of hope.  Her name, by the way, is Andrea as well.

“Andrea to Andrea. While I can only imagine what you are going through, I have been in the position of your son. I have abandoned everything and everyone close to me in the pursuit of “love” and drugs. I hurt so many people – but what kills me inside is how my parents would look at me. How they would look at me when I slept through Father’s Day and the anniversary of my brother’s death. How I could take all the love, support, and friendship I have always had with them and throw it down the drain.
The reason I am telling you this is because today I have that amazing relationship with my parents – and everyone else I truly care for – back. It has, and will always be, a long road to regain their love and trust. I speak with my mother daily and have moved back to within 5 mins. driving distance because in truth, she is my best friend. While I am still with the same “love” that I was back then, we no longer enable each other to do anything except relearn how to live soberly and responsibly. My parents, who at one point despised him so vehemently, have seen in him a ‘fine’ young man and one who has moved mountains as far as they are concerned. [In so much as how he has changed and is caring, responsible, respecting, etc.].
I don’t know that this will ever happen with your son. I have not read through all your posts to glean every little detail I can. What I want you to know is that it is possible. I once heard that ‘people never change.’ Well then maybe C and I haven’t changed. We have only found who we once were. Who we were before each of us, in our own way, got off track.
Good luck in life. Sincerely and from the bottom of my heart, Andrea.”

 I posted this because there is always hope and always individuals in need of hearing it exists…