My Bestest Friend Emailed Me! :)

My bestest online friend of all time, my beloved Fish, emailed me recently. It made me smile and cry at the same time. It always happens like that. I have received several emails from her lately. I am so excited and so happy. She wrote thanks for not forgetting me. I could never forget you sweet fish.

I am now trying to figure out what to say about my life and stuff, I always seem to draw a blank lately when trying to email peeps. And even worse, now, having trouble figuring out what to write for new posts here.

We met online about twelve years ago! She is so sweet and wonderful and oh my god! if you think that I am those things, please believe me she is all that and more. She is one of my friends that I refer to as Angel Spirits. I have only known four Angel Spirits and she is one of them.

My friend Fish has lots of health issues and we had not been in contact in a while. But I have a photo she sent me some years ago, of herself, and I have it sitting on my desk next to my computer monitor screen and I look at it at least a hundred times a day. 🙂 I also have several greeting cards she has sent, taped up so I can see them each day, even though they were sent some time ago, they each make me feel happy, they each make me smile.

I wish that you all had such a wonderful friend as her. But you can’t have her. She’s my best friend.

I Met A Guy

About a month ago I met a guy. As always I was thinking about the possibility of friendship, nothing more. That’s not going to work out.

It was a very hot and humid evening. I had just been to a few stores downtown and had decided to sit down by one of the many fountains for a while, read from a book, have a snack, wait for the temperature to go down a little before going home to my non-air conditioned apartment. A few minutes later I looked up and saw that a guy had decided to join me. He started talking to me.

Basically he started out the conversation criticizing something I was doing and telling me how and why I was wrong. He did it in a light-hearted jokey manner. He was telling me that there was no need for me to lock up my bicycle when I was sitting near it.

Okay this is not something I like and not something that I usually tolerate from strangers.

But it is usually my automatic response to start defending my choices. I stopped myself in mid-sentence and said this is what I do, I don’t tell someone else what to do, but this is what I do. I was really proud of myself.

He said bikes don’t get stolen down here. Which I know is untrue, they do. I’ve read about it in the local paper and even heard people talk about it happening. I wasn’t going to argue the merits of safety and crime to him. It is my choice and I can make any choice that I want to about my bike being locked, even when it is right next to me.

His next conversational gambit was to tell me, you’re sad. My response was, you seem to be assuming that there is something wrong with being sad, or allowing yourself to be feeling sad, or perhaps even some other emotions. I don’t agree. It made me feel as though he saw me as more vulnerable and that being an opening for him. I didn’t think that I was feeling more sad than anyone else that evening. I was actually having a lovely time by myself. I was really enjoying my evening.

We talked for a bit and what I really wanted was for him to go away and leave me alone so I could eat my snack in peace and privacy and read my book. He didn’t. I think that next time I will just take out my book and start reading and not care if someone considers me rude.

He was originally from another country and seemed amazed that I knew where his country was on his continent. Gasp! A woman who loves geography. He praised me as one would a five year old. It was kind of funny.

He made several comments about me that made me think he was interested in me, in a way that I was not interested in him. I made that abundantly clear, but I don’t think he wanted to believe me. I’ve interacted with guys like that in the past. It has never gone good.

He suggested that I was pretty and therefore should date. I told him he was young enough to be my son and I was not interested in dating someone  young enough to be my son.

He tried to convince me that I should have children. I tried to explain the facts of life to him, but he seemed to refuse to believe in reality. I tried to explain to him that a woman is born with only so many eggs and when those are gone, you don’t make anymore. He seemed satisfied that I would consider adopting older children, if I did ever marry.

We went on to talk politics at length. He approved of my depth of knowledge and understanding. He said that Obama was going to drop bombs on Syria. I said no, don’t count on it, not going to happen. He said oh yeah in a couple of days. I said no it won’t happen soon, if at all, wait and see and you can say I was right. Yeah, that was about a month ago and I was right.

He said several times, you are a good person. Yes. I know that. Telling me the obvious is not a compliment as far as I am concerned. Acting as though I don’t have a good grasp of that is underestimating me, who I am, and how far I have come. Really it’s kind of condescending, to us, we found it grating on the nerves rather than disarming or complimentary.

He wanted my phone number. I told him I don’t give that out, but he could give me his. He didn’t like that. He didn’t know what his schedule was going to be like so told me what day to call him to see about meeting for coffee. I called with my number blocked, but he didn’t know what day he would be off. I called two other evenings, and he didn’t pick up the phone.

Thinking over all of this for the last month, I see lots of reasons not to try to see him. I don’t like someone who just assumes it is okay to sit near me and start talking, especially a guy. He could have started talking to me while he was still standing and see if I was receptive to a conversation, rather than inviting himself into my space, even if it was a public space, it was still my space. I don’t like being told what to do and what not to do. That will immediately piss me off. I don’t like having to defend myself or being teased. I don’t like people assuming that because I am from America I am not knowledgeable about international current events, international issues and international politics. I don’t like people insisting, implying, or judging that my personal choices of being alone and childless are not valid and appropriate to my life situation, and my business and no one else’s. I don’t like being evaluated as a potential mate, especially when I am clear from the start that I am not interested in that with that person. I’ve never been able to make one of them into a friend.

So I met a guy. But he wasn’t the right kind of guy. Not even the right kind of guy to make into a friend. A potential friend has to show me respect, exhibit proper boundaries, honor women, have a sense of humor, make me smile and laugh, share of his self and his life, love the exchange of ideas and words, and so much more. None of which he exhibited.

 

 

Healing Quotes 449

“Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.”

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~ Unknown

Healing Quotes 401

“Friends– like flowers– give pleasure just by being.”

~ Rebecca Shaw

About My Ex-Friend

Today I thought of you. A couple of days ago I thought of you. Most days I don’t. A couple of days ago I was out at the coffeeshop, enjoying myself, and the thought of you occurred to me. I thought I don’t usually think of you, not at all. That was all, just a comment to myself, you are not noteworthy in my mind.

Today I thought of you. I thought of how we had been friends for eight years, and how you had always told me that I was the only person in your life who had ever been good to you, except one relative. And I thought how could you be so cruel to me and not be my friend anymore. I wasn’t sad, not one little bit, just puzzled, cause I really deserved your loyalty and friendship.

You’re an Odd One, Different

Mentions physical assault by female parent.

I met someone about four years ago. She seemed to like me a lot. She was really drawn to me. She seemed to value me. She told me that I was a very strong Reiki healer. No one else ever said anything positive to me among the Reiki people that I knew. I started to believe her.

We talked on a phone a little. We got together and went out to eat a couple of times. We did Reiki on each other one day. She spoke of spending more time with me. It sort of never happened. And then I moved out of state and back again. We rarely talked on the phone, only because I called her. I would still call her, leave messages with her partner and on her machine, and still send her emails, but I was not getting any call-backs from her. The last time I spoke to her she said that she was too busy and would call me back in six months or so when she had some time. She never did.

When we did talk I thought that she was running over my boundaries a lot. She would ask a lot of very, very personal questions, ones that were none of her business. It was an old pattern for me to answer all her questions. My mother, who sexually abused me, used to ask me questions when I was a child and if I did not answer her or if she did not like my answers she would become enraged, run at me, and physically assault me. So I have a lot of trouble having appropriate boundaries around questions and answers and she seemingly has no boundaries when it comes to questioning me. I do not know if she does this to others, but she really does it to me.

Since I had been very lonely this last month I have gotten out all my numbers and tried to connect to everyone here in my home state that I have not been successful in making a re-connection with since moving home.

I talked to her. She blamed me for not calling her, even though I pointed out to her that I had often tried to re-connect. She blamed me for us not getting together, even though she had told me that she didn’t have time for me, even though I still called her and left messages. She asked me really inappropriate questions about why I have not started a Reiki business nor made it successful. I don’t want to admit it, but I answered a lot of her questions. I really felt backed into a corner and that is not a place that I am comfortable with, due to past abuse history and triggers.

She acted like she was not happy with my answers. They are my answers, what is to like or not  like about them? They are about my life, what I am dealing with, and how I am doing, not about her or what she has or hasn’t done with me or whether or not she has been a friend to me in the last four years. I was being honest with her. I don’t know what is to get upset about.

She asked me what is wrong, apparently she could tell I was upset. I lost what I thought was my best friend, I was lonely, I was alone, I didn’t want to be. I told her, nothing. She asked again, what is wrong? I said nothing. She said, no really what is it? I said nothing is wrong.

(I wasn’t lying to her. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong in my life. Nothing is wrong with my life. It is my life. It isn’t wrong to feel one thing or another or to experience one thing or another. I am a human being.  I am living my life. There is nothing wrong in that.)

She sighed and muttered something. I asked, what? She said you’re an odd one, different. I asked her, what about me or what I said do you find odd or different. She said, you, the way you are.

I think you can guess if I will ever be calling her again.

I Get Lost Sometimes

I do get lost sometimes. I don’t always have a good handle on things. Others see so much good stuff in me and I still doubt it, at times. I remind myself almost every day of something someone said to me on the blog, it brings me along on my healing path, it helps me to heal, it helps me to believe in myself, it helps put loneliness in the shadows for a time.

I have a lot of good functional things in my life. I have a lot of good coping skills. I don’t have a lot of detrimental coping mechanisms and it was something I always seemed to be able to manage well, even when I was going through the most difficult times on my healing path.

It can be hard to want others and not get that and unfortunately that is a large and looming part of my life and always has been. It is hard to lose a friend that I relied on a great deal. It is hard for me to try to manage my life without close friends in real life and that this situation has happened over my whole life has always left me feeling even lonelier.

I am proud of myself and how far I have come and how much I have healed and grown. I think that online it is easy for others to see that. Some of the best friends I have ever had in my life were met online, on my blog, or on their blogs, others who are working on healing.

I have been in support groups in real life over the years and often got responses that I was seen as strong and courageous. At the support groups I couldn’t relate to alcohol use, drug use, unsafe behaviors, over-sexualization, an eating disorder, cutting, but the more that I learned about the dynamics of child sexual abuse, it’s aftereffects, and it’s aftermath the more I could understand and relate to it. I could always imagine how the aftermath of child sexual abuse could lead someone to being divorced from their own body and to engage in behaviors that were less than healthy or healing, and I could hold love, acceptance, and compassion in my heart for any survivor who was struggling with those issues.

Still I struggled, then and now. I need friends. I know that everyone needs friends. I know that most people realize that others need friends. Being vulnerable to others and seeking them out is a natural part of life to me. I don’t have to hide that. I didn’t think I was, but I think there were some things I wasn’t writing about and I am trying to do that, because I do want to be seen more clearly. Clarity is what I yearn for and what I work towards in my own life and in communion with others.

I want others to see me. I want them to know that I struggle. I want them to know that I need others. I want them to know that I need them.

I was admitting something to someone I knew online in chat four years ago.  I remember what was said, they said oh Kate surely not, surely you don’t struggle with that issue. I was like, “yeah I do. It honors no one for me to pretend that I don’t.”

It doesn’t honor myself because I would be saying that what I struggle with needs to be hidden, needs to be kept in the dark, needs for me to feel shame about it and that what others struggle with should make them feel the same things. It doesn’t honor others. They are left with a false image of me as someone who doesn’t struggle, who isn’t alone, who can’t relate. I can. I do. When I realize that there is a misunderstanding I try to write about it. Standing in the light is what I do best.

I know I write about how much friends mean to me. I know I write sometimes to my blog friends on my blog and say you mean so much to me, you mean everything to me. It is true. You mean the whole wide world to me. I get lost sometimes. And my online friends find me. It is so fucking wonderful to be found.

A Friend Lost

I’m not sure if this title is exactly accurate, but it feels as though it is true. I was the one to end the friendship, or perhaps I was the first one to voice that we weren’t friends any longer and to say that it was over with.

We had been online friends for many years. We talked on the phone a lot, posted to a message board to one another a lot, and wrote emails back and forth to one another. Over time we became very close, I thought. I trusted her and told her things that I didn’t have anyone else to tell. Having a close friend who is a survivor, who I can share a great deal with and share a great deal in our backgrounds, was tremendously healing from me.

Then things changed. More and more I was losing people or losing contact or closeness to them, including her. Over time I was very lonely and started trying to find more avenues online where I could reach out to others. Actually this is one of the big reasons that I started a blog. From the beginning of my blog I loved the contact with others and with their blogs. I wanted to reach out to others, but it was beyond my ability to hope or even envision finding others who were reaching back to me.

I hadn’t heard from this friend in the last few months and I had been going through so much loneliness. I know that isn’t anyone else’s fault. I know that she was dealing with her own stuff, but I just didn’t know what her own stuff was, no contact. I know that I wanted to do more activities and find more friends, but my health was seriously getting in the way of that, as always, though perhaps more in the last six months.

She had been sick a lot lately. When I found out I offered to do Reiki distance healing energy for her for free. She agreed. I did seven hours for her for free. We had several difficult emails where she accused me of many things, including trying to get money from her for them and then that I was not being professional. Free sort of doesn’t equate with professional, free is free, professional is for pay. I wrote to her that I had done this out of the love in my heart.

I thought about it that night after I had written her another email. I thought that she is not my friend anymore, if she were she would not write such hateful and ugly things to me. I thought oh I must be going to feel very horrible about all of this. But the fact is that I didn’t feel anything at all. I looked inside myself and all I saw was this huge empty space where our friendship should have been. I was very surprised. If you had asked me before that moment I never would have said that is what I would feel. There was nothing there. I thought that I had lost her a long time ago and that was why there was nothing there.

The next day I got another email and wrote back saying we weren’t friends anymore. I think I was just stating a fact, rather than breaking up with her as a friend. We aren’t friends anymore. There’s nothing I can do about that. There’s nothing I want to do about that. I don’t feel sad about that. I don’t feel anything about that.

Instead I felt all the loneliness I had been feeling the last six months. I know that’s not all about her and that I certainly wasn’t looking for her to fill up that space inside me now, after what’s happened. Getting feedback from some online friends through this has really helped buoy me and given me some great advice. I am making plans for my life and making things better day by day. I love and appreciate all the good things that I do have. And I want so much more. With that in mind I am going to keep reaching.

A Misunderstanding

I went out with a friend this week and had a great time. We are sort of new to our friendship in the last six months, even though we knew each other from a business I go to for the last couple of years. I really love her. She has such a sweet energy about her and is so sweet and kind to others.

I was talking to her about how I manage my life right now. At least I thought that I was communicating how hard it is for me and that I want it to change really bad. I guess I didn’t communicate it right. I don’t think she understood. I was talking about how I have few friends to do things with and that I have mostly online friends. And that is probably due a lot to my long-term disability and health issues. That I do things to entertain myself as much as possible based on my health and money issues.

She said well I personally could not be happy with that. I love and need to be around other people. I said oh I am an extrovert. I think I’m like you. I don’t like being alone so much, but I manage it as best I can. I’m glad she said something.

I really wouldn’t have wanted her going home with this misunderstanding that I am doing fine. I’m not. I’ve been very lonely. I know that I have more on the blog, online, and in my life right now than in the last fifteen years. I am so very thankful for that. But I yearn for so much more.

Birthday Week Day Six

First of all, it was hot days Friday and Saturday, so I had to cancel some plans. I decided to just stay inside in the air conditioning and not do much of anything on Friday.

I wanted to go to the movie theater, but didn’t on Friday or Saturday. Now I am hoping to go see it Wednesday or Thursday. I didn’t go on a bike ride on Friday, but I did on Saturday. First of all, it was way too hot and humid to bike with doggie on Saturday, but the forecast I read online sounded okay. It was not exactly accurate.

We went to the park and we sat around and just tried to stay cool. I read some of a book. It seemed to be too hot for most people and for most dogs, because the park stayed pretty empty of kids, parents, and doggies, but still we had a good time. I had brought some water and a plastic bowl for doggie and what she didn’t drink, I spread on her back to help cool her down.

The nicest part of the day and the biggest present to myself was getting to talk for several hours on the phone with my best friend. What a gift. We made plans to talk again on my birthday, a great treat.