i just survived the loneliest, most isolating year of my life.
i moved back to the small town where i was raised, from which nearly everyone i know had escaped. my friends were scattered around the continent, but i was hopeful for somewhat of a normal social life because my oldest friends were only an hour's drive away.
so what if i was moving to the middle of nowhere? i'd see my friends in the city all of the time. at least monthly, right? well, half of them have kids now. so maybe once every three months or so?
that's not exactly what happened.
about a year before my move, an old friend and i had a falling out. she made it exceedingly clear that she wanted nothing to do with me and never wanted to share space with me again. when she's the social manager for the friend group and she doesn't like you anymore, i guess your invitations suddenly get lost in the mail.
i don't blame my friends for it. they wanted to remain neutral. no taking sides, they said. i get it. still, the only time i saw most of those friends was when i came to town and organized a meal together.
i was disappointed, but i understood their situation. if she's organizing the dinners and the new years eve parties and the fun girls nights, it would be frowned upon for one of my friends to invite me along. so instead, a best friend from new york visited for new years and i called other far away friends and i cherished the time i did get to spend with the couple of nearby friends who ensured to schedule one-on-one time with me away from the group.
and i rationalized, "if you want to see them, reach out to them. you can't be upset that they aren't inviting you if you don't do the same." so when the opportunity came for me to dogsit and live in the city for a month, i took full advantage. i reached out to everyone to make plans to see each other while i was in town. despite some promises to follow up, i saw a grand total of one friend during that month. (in full disclosure, i later found out that i had outdated phone numbers for a few folks and had been calling and texting the wrong numbers nearly all year. no wonder they were disappointingly silent.)
living in small town ohio was tough, but missing my nearby friends was worse. it was isolating and painful. my empathetic brain can certainly rationalize their behavior. honestly, i can't say whether or not i would have acted any differently had i been in their shoes. out of sight, out of mind didn't become a common saying for nothing.
eventually, i quit texting or calling. i'd go to the city to go shopping or to see my family and i wouldn't tell anyone i was in town. i immersed myself in my new business and spent a lot of time searching my own soul, which started out with self-loathing and pity:
- why do they hate me? (they didn't.)
- why don't they call me? (call them if you want to talk, you idiot.)
- why did they choose her over me? (they didn't.)
next i grappled with projection and blame. then i moved on to surface level stuff. until i finally got to the meat of it all:
- as i think back on my time back home last year, i wonder if my sadness had to do with a sort of regression back to my adolescent self. i don't ever want to be that melodramatic little girl again. i've worked a lot of years to grow into a healthier, more stable being.
- and these dear, old friends. i haven't been a regular part of their lives for a lot of years. why did i think it would suddenly change, simply because i was living a little closer than before?
friendships, just like any good relationship, must be nurtured. the real reasons for my isolation had nothing to do with anything my self-declared enemy had inflicted. it was the direct result of many years of me being checked out and self-secluded.
i'm a terrible long-distance friend. i do a lot better when you're right in front of me. i know that i need to do better, and i'm taking baby steps. for example, when two friends got engaged, i wrote a card and sent it in the mail instead of simply posting my congratulations to facebook. i'm really trying to make efforts to change my attitude and behavior.
i guess the point of all of this is: don't throw stones in glass houses. you'll end up with a lot of required clean up and no one to blame but yourself.
