Thoughts for a Tuesday

I like this title better than Tirade Tuesday. It's hard for me to be a shrieking witch on a continual basis.

I've been giving a lot of thought to where I am in the world. My circumstances. My sphere of influence. My interaction with other people. I have found I'm not entirely happy with it, but I'm not putting any effort into correcting it either.

I love my family and friends. I love what I do, personally and professionally. I feel blessed that I have a wonderful man to share my life with. I feel truly fortunate to be where I am professionally. But something is missing.

There are times I want to call up a friend, and just hang out at Starbucks, or Barnes & Noble. Go cruise the craft store. Have lunch. But I want this with one of my old friends, the ones that know me sometimes better than I know myself. They are too far away for that.

I love the Bay Area, but sometimes it's lonely. I made a "new" friend a few years ago. We met at work. I put far more stock in our friendship than she did. I haven't seen her since June 2006, and the deep sense of hurt and betrayal I felt then is still as strong today. Sadly, this renewed my belief that your personal life and professional life need to be held far apart.

I spend a lot of time at work on the phone. It has become my least favorite mode of communication. I have days when my ears just hurt from being on the phone so much. The last thing I want to do is have a 2 hour conversation on the phone with a friend. I want to talk to them - but I want to see them. See, there's my one big regret. Losing the physical connection with my friends.

Do I actively go out and involve myself in activities where I could meet new people? Not so much. Do I make an effort to become involved in groups? A little.

Here I am whining about something that I know I will make little effort to change. Am I alone in this? I don't think so. Am I too picky about who I choose to associate with? Probably. I don't have a great record when it comes to "girl friends", probably because I never really understood other girls. I found most to be completely silly, boy/man obsessed, and shopping fanatics. Then again, my mother was never great at supporting my socializing endeavors. Until I moved out of the house, I had spent one night away from my mother. One solitary night. I spent it with my godmother's, a woman I didn't like. Not one bit. She used me like a prized show dog to her friends. "Isn't my little Norwegian God Daughter just precious? I could just eat her up!" I told my mother when I went home the next day, that I never wanted to spend another night at THAT WOMAN'S house. I was 8. My mother took that to be I never wanted to spend another night away from her. Yeah - it pretty much sucked around my house after that.

My mother has one friend. A very sweet lady, I have know her my whole life. She has been more of an aunt to me than my own blood. My mother and her best friend. They had another woman they were close to. She passed away in 1976 from breast cancer. They still talk about her, and that awful husband of hers. They're like a couple of school girls when they are together- laughing and joking about nothing and everything. I don't know what they would do without the other. I don't want this to be my life when I'm their age.

In some ways, I am mimicking my mother and her isolationist ways. At least I have things to do to occupy my time. And I obviously share details of my life with anyone willing to listen. I guess I have gotten to a stage in my life that it would be nice to have someone close to hang out with - someone other than my husband. As I said, he is wonderful and I love him to death. But he's a husband! He can't be completely objective.

God, I could go on and on about this. Poop.