Turning 40

Actual birthday cake that my sweet friends Nick and
Marci made for me.

Today is my 40th birthday.

I’ve never been the type to be particularly bothered by age. I know it’s an oft-repeated platitude, but you really are only as old as you feel, and I can’t say that I feel especially old. Most days, it’s a shock to remember that I’m no longer in my 20s. Although I have noticed that I’m starting to look decidedly more mature - especially in the last five years or so - I don’t have any aches or pains. I still look good. And I figure - I’ve always figured - that the alternative to growing another year older (i.e. death) is worse.

So I can’t say that I’ve been approaching this birthday with any feelings of trepidation. Being the writer that I am, however, there has been a certain amount of navel-gazing going on.

Last week, I started thinking about my 30th birthday party, which was a tremendous amount of fun (and also feels like it was about a million years ago). It was surprising to realize that just about everything has changed in my life since then. The person who hosted that party is no longer my friend. In fact, we “broke up” only months after the party. Every single person who attended that party - while many of them are still friends - are people I no longer get to see because I don’t live in that state anymore. At the time, I had no idea that I would be moving away in less than three years. My husband wasn’t even in the picture, wouldn’t be for another year and a half or so. I had a different cat, my little pumpkin belly Julian, but I didn’t have a dog. My mother was still alive. I wouldn’t complete my Master’s degree for another eleven months. And, most shockingly, I wasn’t pursuing my writing career. In fact, I didn’t really write at all at the time; I wouldn’t start doing so regularly for another five years.

Sometimes, I feel like nothing ever changes. I need these milestones to make me stop and reflect and think to really recognize it, to see that life is full of change and surprises. If you had asked me on that birthday to predict what the next ten years would bring, I would have gotten most of it wrong. I never thought I’d leave Portland, or give up my cat, or lose my mom so young. I never thought I’d have the courage to chase my dream of being a writer. I really couldn’t have envisioned this life if I tried.

Instead of facing middle age with distaste or sadness, all I feel is excitement. I can’t wait to see what happens next. I know that some of it will be bad, but I’m not afraid of that. I’ve already been through a lot of the worst stuff a person can go through. I’ve found that it changed me in a good way. Every year, I figure out how to become a better person, a happier person. Every year, I become more comfortable with being me. 

So, here’s to turning 40. Here’s to chasing dreams and experiencing adventures and learning how to accept ourselves and living life to the fullest. May we all, at the end of our days, look back and think, “Yeah, I totally rocked it.”

On Loneliness: Conclusion

To read the rest of this series, please click on the loneliness tag at the bottom of the post.

I originally intended to finish this series in January, but I’ve had the hardest time writing the final chapter. Until recently, I wasn’t sure why. I’ve ruminated on a lot of different topics within this series, from my upbringing to American society to social media. Some of them have been very personal. It hasn’t always been easy for me to open up about myself, to admit how I feel. However, I think it’s been worth it. I think it’s helped me. Sometimes I need to see things in print for them to actually sink in.

The reason I’ve had such a difficult time writing this last piece is that I don’t particularly like the conclusion I’ve come to: when it comes to loneliness, the problem is me.

What I’m saying is, my loneliness seems to stem from my own insecurities and self-doubt, not from any outside source. Like most people, I want to be liked. Unlike most people (maybe), I have a hard time putting myself out there. I don’t like opening up to people, letting them see what’s actually going on inside my head. I fear rejection. Even worse, I have this secret fear that no one actually likes me. Believe me, I understand how crazy that is. It makes no logical sense. But it’s there, in the back of my mind, always ready to rear its ugly head at the most inopportune times.

It seems like a pretty safe bet to pinpoint my childhood as the starting point for this particular issue. I was a really lonely kid. I was also really shy. I don’t think I could even order food in a restaurant for myself until I was in college, when I was forced to. If I couldn’t talk to a stranger to order a meal, you can probably imagine how difficult it was for me to try to make friends. I was teased a lot when I was younger. Other kids didn’t like me. Now I can see that they didn’t actually know me. Because I couldn’t open up to them, they saw only the surface: reserved, bookish, tomboyish, nerdy, serious.

As an adult, I understand why kids didn’t like me. I didn’t get it when I was younger. It was hurtful. I felt weird, different. It always seemed like things came way easier for other people than they did for me. I was well into adulthood before I recognized that most of us struggle, that most of us stumble through life just trying to do the best that we can. Fortunately, I learned to accept myself long before that. My high school BFF, Julie, helped a lot with that. I still have so much admiration for her. She really let her freak flag fly and didn’t care what other people thought of her. She was happy. She inspired me to accept myself, but also to see that I was more than what you could see on the surface, that I’m funny, witty, kind, smart, and compassionate.

The problem is that those childhood insecurities never really go away, not unless you work at it. I thought I’d beaten this particular one. Now I can see that I was wrong. I didn’t so much beat it as attempt to drown out that voice. I filled my life with people and activities. In fact, there was a time when I was so busy that I had to schedule alone time. Rarely did a day pass when I didn’t have something social to do. It was fun as all get out, one of the happiest times of my life. But it wasn’t a solution. As soon as I moved away from Portland, I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. Suddenly, I was that insecure kid again.

All the moving around certainly hasn’t helped. As soon as I start to feel settled, it seems, we’re packing up and moving off to somewhere new, where I have to start building a life all over again. It’s difficult to nurture meaningful relationships when you never live anywhere longer than a couple of years. And I recently realized that I’ve been so busy with all these fresh starts that I haven’t had any time to work on myself. The last time I did was when we lived on Maui. That’s when, suffering from severe depression, I finally read Feeling Good all the way through, which I know I’ve mentioned before. That book was one of the best things to ever happen to me, but I did that work six years ago! 

It’s probably well past time for a mental health refresher. As I recently told a friend, no one ever works out for six months and then expects that to fix their physical health for the rest of their life. It seems silly now to think that one book had fixed all of my insecurities for good.

So there it is, the end of the journey, this conclusion that has been so difficult for me to write down: my loneliness is my own fault. If I don’t want to be lonely anymore, I have work to do. I need to: 1. Fix my insecurities, 2. Change how I interact with people, i.e. try to be less reserved, and 3. Accept that not everyone will want to be my BFF and that’s okay because it’s not a reflection on my worth as a person. A tall order, perhaps, but doable. Not that I expect my loneliness to be cured completely, just like I don’t expect my depression to ever go away completely. Occasionally having bad feelings is all right. It’s part of life. I just don’t want to feel this way all the time. 

This is my final post about loneliness, and I hope that the series has been helpful to those of you who’ve been along for the ride. Maybe you can relate, and it’s helped you to think about the root of your own loneliness. Maybe you can’t relate, but it’s helped you to understand what it’s like for other people. At any rate, I thank you for reading. I plan to continue writing essays, and I hope that you continue to read them. If you have any topic recommendations, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Final Reflections on December 2014

December 2014 was pretty great, a nice cap on a year that was full of lots of ups and downs (More on that, perhaps, later. I’m still deciding whether or not to do Final Reflections on the year 2014). The month began with a visit to my beloved Austin, where I attended my friends’ wedding, got to enjoy some of the city, and hung out with most of my really awesome Austin friends. It was a short trip, but I had a great time.

After flying back to Cali, I spent the rest of the month really busy with writing, work, household errands/chores, and holiday festivities. In some respects, it’s been a little overwhelming. I’m finding it difficult to balance everything I need and want to do. I feel like I have three jobs: novelist, part-time admin assistant, and housewife. “Why don’t you pawn off some of those household chores on your husband?” I hear you thinking to yourself. Sadly, my husband is working 10-12 hour days right now, and often works on the weekend as well, so he doesn’t have a lot of time or energy for the household errands either.

I think I’m beginning to figure it all out. Getting up earlier in the morning is helping (I sleep too much anyway), and spontaneously losing interest in watching much Netflix has freed me up to get more reading done, a hobby I’ve been meaning to get back to for a while. Even so, after the go-go-go of the first few weeks of December, it was nice at the end of the month to be off work so I could relax and spend a lot of time by myself, which I enjoyed.

Just before New Year's, I released my first novel. My goal had been to release by the end of the year, so I was both thrilled and proud to reach that goal. Since this is my personal blog, and not intended for professional promotion, I will not be using it as a platform to launch my career. However, at the release of each book, I will make one post containing the relevant info. Here is the info for my first book, The Artifact (by J.E. Lorin):

Book on Amazon

Book on iBooks

My Author Website/Blog

My Author Twitter

My Author Facebook

The outpouring of support from my friends has been both tremendous and humbling. It’s been a great reminder that I know a lot of truly wonderful people. The journey to get to this point has been a long one. It wasn’t easy to give myself permission to chase this dream. I’m so happy that I did. Even if the book never gains traction, releasing it fulfilled a lifelong dream. It’s been tremendously gratifying. 

Here’s to hoping that your December was filled with as much fun, laughter, and satisfaction as mine! I wish you all the best in 2015.

On Loneliness: Social Media

I have a love-hate relationship with social media. I suspect that most people feel this way.

On the one hand, social media has been a boon to my existence. It’s brought people back into my life that I thought were lost to me forever. It’s helped me forge friendships with people I’ve never met in real life. It’s also let me stay in contact with all the wonderful people I’ve met these last six or so years, while we’ve been moving frequently. It helps keep me informed of what’s going on in the world. It makes me laugh every day, and sometimes it even helps me feel better when I’m down.

On the other hand, social media has been a bane of my existence. It makes me feel pressured, like I need to prove to everyone how popular I am. Whether I spend too much time on it or no time at all, I feel like the message people are getting is that I don’t have a “real” life. A lot of people (including people I think are awesome when I see them in person) are jerks on social media. It’s usually so full of bad news that it depresses me, or so full of everyone bitching about inane things that it annoys me. It also frequently makes me feel like I’m missing out on something.

I go through periods where I do a lot of “nothing.” I stay home, watch shows and movies, read, write, and play games. I try not to indulge too much in these periods, because I know that I’ll never get to the end of my life and wish that I’d sat around the house more. But sometimes it feels like how I want to spend my time for a few days, and I think that’s okay. I always enjoy myself. I never feel bad about it - until I get online and see all the awesome stuff that everyone else has been doing while I’ve been a boring homebody. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

I don’t blame social media for the bouts of loneliness and inadequacy I sometimes feel. Some of the loneliest periods of my life occurred well before social media ever existed. But I do think that it’s an extension of the human problem in general, and perhaps of America’s problem more specifically. It’s not truly a place to make connections. It’s a forum for us to show everyone how many friends we have, how successful we are, how attractive we are, and how much we’ve been doing. And it’s not easy to resist getting sucked into all of that. 

There’s nothing new under the sun. Everything you’ve ever felt or thought, people before you have felt and thought for thousands of years. That includes loneliness. I think that being a living, thinking, breathing human being is simply, on some level, an isolating experience. No matter how many loved ones you have, or how much you do, at the end of the day, you’re still alone inside your head. No one else can truly meet you in there.

So I don’t think that social media causes loneliness. I think it’s a symptom of a greater problem. It just happens to be a symptom that, on the surface, seems like a bit of a cure. You go online, like and comment on your friends’ stuff, and they like and comment on yours, and for a while, you feel a little bit happier. You feel loved and validated. But then you close your browser and all that goes away. You’re alone inside your head again. So maybe you go online for longer, or more frequently, trying to get that feeling back. It’s almost like a drug. Maybe it is a drug. I sometimes feel like a drug addict with it. “I’ll just post this real quick and not get on it the rest of the day,” I tell myself. “Oh, but now someone has commented on my post. I want to see what they said, perhaps respond to it. Oh, look, that George Takei is so funny!” Ad nauseum. Ugh.

In and of itself, it’s not the problem, but how we interact with it certainly can be. 

The people in my life I feel closest to, besides my husband, are the few people that I exchange physical, hand-written letters with. While all of these people are also friends online, we rarely talk there. I’ve always been best at expressing myself in the written word, a writer through-and-through. I tend to tell people things in my letters that I don’t tell even the friends I see in person. I’m not the type of person who can easily admit out loud that I’m depressed or lonely or scared. It seems like less of a commitment to write those things down, but I’m not capable of expressing them in one or two sentences either.

And perhaps therein lies the crux of the issue with social media. While it scratches an itch, it’s not the right itch. It alleviates the immediate need without addressing what’s both deeper and more important. I think that’s why, nearly every time I log off, I’m left feeling slightly (or sometimes greatly) disappointed. The more time that passes, the more I think that I need to find a way to disconnect from it, although probably not completely. I feel like I’d be happier without it, or at least without it so easily accessible.

I’m not sure what the right answer is for me on this issue. It’s a bit of a catch-22. On a professional level, as a self-publishing author, I see that I’ll need to become more involved with social media. It’s not a matter of what I want, but of what I need to do to succeed. 

Socially, it can depend on one's circle, whether or not social media is necessary. Fortunately, here in California, my friends tend to make plans via email and text, but when I lived in Texas, most invites came via social media. Right now, it's not necessary for me on the personal level, but I think I'll stick with it so long as the positives outweigh the negatives. And when the bad begins to outweigh the good? Well, I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Final Reflections on November 2014

I think November 2014 was the best month I’ve had in a really long time. There’s a lot to be said for achieving the things you’ve been meaning to achieve. I enjoy feeling accomplished. In November I: got the finished manuscript back from my editor; found and began working with a cover artist; and got a part-time job. I’m only working about 6-10 hours per week, but at this point it seems to be more than enough. With work, writing a thousand words per day, doing pretty much all the household chores/errands, and a much improved social life, I’m feeling very busy right now!

In addition to the huge leaps forward with the book, I also had a visit from my brother. That was a lot of fun. I took him to a few places I’d already been. He also helped me explore some more of the city, going places I hadn’t been before: namely Malibu Creek State Park and Catalina Island. I’ve already been back to the park, with friends this past weekend. I’d really like to return to Catalina Island, since we only got to spend an afternoon there. I’ve been floating the idea to my husband that we go for my fortieth birthday next year.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. It’s my favorite holiday. I love taking one day a year to stop and reflect on everything I have to be grateful for (although I do try to be grateful every day). I also love good food, conversation, and friends. So it’s the perfect holiday for me. A friend of ours hosted and we really had a splendid time.

In December I’m looking forward to a weekend trip to Austin to celebrate my friends’ wedding. I’m also looking forward to publishing my book (hopefully releasing it by the end of the year!) and attending holiday parties. It will be a nice cap to a year that has, like usual, been full of lots of ups and downs (although mostly up I’d say). 

November was a nice month, full of so many great things: family, friends, work, writing, accomplishments, and the rain that LA has so desperately needed all year. If you’re stopping by to read, why don’t you tell me what made your November special?

On Loneliness: Modern American Society

Note: To read the other parts of this series, just click on the loneliness tag at the bottom of this post.

Chances are that you forgot about this series, or perhaps thought it was done, because I haven’t posted anything about it since April. I had originally intended three more posts for the series, entitled: My Personality, Modern American Society, and Conclusions. However, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that I’d said enough about my personality, and that what little is left to be said about it will come out in my other posts. Therefore, I decided to cut out that post.

As I sat down to write about American society, I quickly realized that I had a lot to say, and that not all of it necessarily flowed together cohesively. This has led to me spending a lot of time thinking about what, exactly, my point is. After a while, it occurred to me that I had two related points: one specifically about American society, and one about social media, which I don’t see as solely an American issue. Eventually I decided that these two points needed to be addressed separately, which means that, while there will still be three more posts in this series, they’re now entitled: Modern American Society, Social Media, and Conclusions.

Now, on to my musings about American society:

I think that, in an interpersonal sense, it can be very difficult to be an American. We get a lot of mixed messages. One of the most celebrated American characteristics is independence. We’re very proud of our individualism here. (It’s always amused me that the most feared bad guy in the Star Trek universe is the Borg, who strip a person of his/her individuality. It seems like the quintessential American fear.) In America, you’re supposed to be self-reliant. If you get knocked down, you’re supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. If someone wants to help you, that’s fine, but you’re not supposed to ask for it. Asking for help is weak and needy, and that’s bad. At the end of the day, the only person you’re supposed to rely on is yourself.

You would think, with this strong emphasis on rugged individualism, that we Americans would feel encouraged to be a nation of loners, but that’s simply not the case. As much as we are pressured to be self-reliant, we are also pressured to be popular. The implication is that a person can’t be happy or fulfilled if he or she doesn’t have dozens, if not hundreds, of friends. The only time you hear the word “loner” in America, it’s usually coupled with a tone that indicates that loners are weird, undesirable. The person who committed the latest mass shooting? A “loner” who never talked to anyone. Pedophile/rapist? A “loner” who lived in Mom’s basement.

In America, the land of “you take care of yours and I’ll take care of mine,” being a loner is definitely a no-no.

It can all be a bit confusing. I feel like I’m expected to accumulate a huge social network, while, at the same time, I’m told not to depend upon that network. That leaves me to wonder what the point of having all these friends is. Bragging rights? I occasionally enjoy watching game shows and I always laugh whenever someone is set to win a dream weekend getaway with 50 of his or her “closest friends.” Who honestly has 50 “close” friends, I wonder? 50 friends, sure, but “close” ones? I highly doubt it.

Which is not to say that I discourage anyone from pursuing close relationships. If you’ve been reading this series, then you’ll know how much my friendships mean to me. However, the pressure in this country to accumulate as many friendships as humanly possible is intense. I find the idea that all of these friendships could actually be meaningful and close ridiculous. That’s simply not how human interaction works. America, as a nation, sort of feels like a teenager who hasn’t yet figured out that not everyone will like it and/or be its BFF

For my own part, I actually enjoy spending a significant amount of time by myself. I wouldn’t call myself a loner. I enjoy the company of other people. It can be a delicate, and difficult, balance to strike though. If I spend too much time alone, I get depressed, but if I spend too much time with other people, it exhausts me. And I’m not immune to societal pressure. Whenever I take too long of a break from pursuing human interaction, I start to feel like something is wrong with me. I know that feeling didn’t originate from inside of me. I know that it’s me responding to outside messages.

As far as friendships go, all I’ve ever really wanted was a small, core group of true blue companions who will journey through life with me. This has proven frustratingly elusive to attain. When I lived in Portland, I felt like I’d built a strong foundation of friendship. If I still lived there, I’d likely find that to be true. However, I discovered, much to my disappointment, that even in this age of the internet and social media, moving away from your friends means that you simply won’t remain as close to most of them as you were when you lived in the same city. Friendships, like all other relationships, require effort, and most people aren’t willing to put that kind of effort into someone they virtually never see in person.

My husband and I have moved too much these last six years for me to fully form the kind of close relationships I had in Portland. While I understand this on an intellectual level, it’s still difficult to accept. We Americans aren’t especially known for our patience. Also, since I’m an introvert, it’s difficult for me to keep putting myself out there, to work for the kind of connections I want. Additionally, I’ve encountered another problem of American society: our almost pathological need to be busy (or at least appear to be) nearly all the time.

Honestly, I used to come up against this in Portland as well. You meet someone you like, you make an effort to spend time with them, only to be constantly rebuffed because the person just doesn’t have time for you. They’ve got work and self improvement classes and exercise and book clubs/women’s groups/church/volunteer work/whatever and kids and tons of other friends. There’s simply very little room in their schedule for you, no matter how much you may have clicked with them. It’s nearly as infuriating as it is frustrating. 

I’ve always thought that, if people really want to spend time with you, then they’ll make time. If they can’t be bothered to make time, then that’s all you need to know about them. Now I have to wonder if this is the case. I feel like a lot of Americans don’t know how not to be busy, like the busyness fills some kind of void and if they stop to breathe for a few minutes, then they’ll have to think about whatever it is that they’ve been dodging. Busyness is a kind of sickness. I could be overanalyzing, or perhaps even projecting. All I know is, back when I had the “busy bug,” I was mostly trying to flee feelings of loneliness.

Sometimes I think I need to catch the “busy bug” again. It was certainly a time of my life that felt full and fun. However, it didn’t fix my underlying problems then, so I doubt it would fix anything now. Being busy certainly kept me from thinking too much, but it didn’t bring me the kind of connections I was seeking. In the ensuing years, I’ve slowed down a lot, spent lots more time by myself, and figured out that the world didn’t end when I was left alone with my own thoughts. However, that hasn’t brought me the kind of connections I’m seeking either.

I’m still not sure what the answer to this dilemma is. Like most solutions, it probably lies somewhere in the middle. It’s good to be busy, but not too busy. It’s good to make friends, but you should work on cultivating only a few of those friendships into something deeper. It’s good to be your own person, but you really should ask for help when you need it. And by the way, if you like to be alone, that’s okay too. “Loner” shouldn't be a dirty word anymore. 

I feel that everyone should embrace what works for him/her. However, it’s always important to take a step back and reflect on what does work for you. Just because something is “normal” or “correct” by society’s standards doesn’t mean that it’s right for you (note: I am not advocating for any illegal activity). After all, being an individual means not going along with the herd. It means asserting your independence. 

What could be more American than that?

Final Reflections on October 2014

October started out really promising. True to what I posted last month, I began making a more concentrated effort to organize my life and time. On a friend’s enthusiastic recommendation, I joined HabitRPG, a game that helps one develop good habits. I’ve found that it suits me well. In short order, I was exercising regularly, getting my chores/errands done more consistently, and writing a lot more. My life felt busier, my mental health improved, and I felt better physically as well. (Side note: I also interviewed for a part-time job working for an acquaintance but won’t know for a few more weeks if I’ve landed the position.)

However, about a week before I was to leave on a planned trip to Portland, my husband came home from work sick. Of course, that means I spent the next week sick, although not as sick as him, exerting as little energy as possible in an attempt to get better before my trip. It nearly worked. I was feeling better, although not completely well, by time I left. Unfortunately, the combination of travel, cold/wet weather, and lots of running around in Portland made me worse again and I spent most of my trip sick anyway.

All that is to say, I had to put my HabitRPG character “at the inn” during my illness and trip, which means that all the good habits I’d started to build fell by the wayside. After coming back from the trip, I convinced myself that I needed a break from my regular life to “recuperate,” but I realized over this past weekend that I only have about a week until a visit from my brother and a lot to do in that time, so today I’m jumping back into the swing of things.

The weekend before my trip, I got the first edit of my manuscript back from my editor. I was feeling poorly enough that I didn’t spend much time looking through it. My main goals for this week are to finish looking over the manuscript and to begin one of the things I’ve most been dreading: the search for a cover artist. The whole process of actually publishing the book (now that it’s nearly finished) is both daunting and scary to me. I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s very far outside of both my skill set and my comfort level. I’ve been dragging my feet on this for a long time.

However, the other night, I was talking to a friend who’s nearing completion of a photography degree. He was expressing similar feelings about how difficult it is for him to push himself beyond the moment of creation, into that next step. It was comforting to be reminded that what I’m feeling is neither unusual nor unique. It was also sobering. I’ve pushed myself a lot these last six years; I’ve been forced to learn to adapt and evolve through a lot of difficult situations. I thought I could take a break from it for a while, but it’s become clear to me that I can’t, at least not for now.

My focus for November will be on doing the nitty gritty tasks of the book that I’ve been avoiding - finding a cover artist, building my website, etc. - in addition to entertaining my brother and planning another trip, this time to Texas in early December. It seems like a lot, but I’m feeling up to the challenge.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, my Portland/Seattle trip was great. I powered through being sick (hopefully I was no one’s Typhoid Mary in the process) and did everything I’d planned and really just had so much fun. I’ve always loved Portland as a city, it’s still such a great town even though it’s changed a lot in the last six years, but seeing my old friends reminded me why it’s been such a huge part of my heart for so long. They’re all such witty, intelligent, fun people. I hadn’t laughed that much in ages. 

My October in a nutshell: a little bit of fun, a little bit of illness, and a little bit of getting my act together. All in all, it was a pretty good month. If you’re stopping by to read, why don’t you tell me how October went for you?

Final Reflections on September 2014

For the most part, I managed to pull myself back together in September. When I turned 39 in July, I promised myself that I would spend the last year of my 30s having fun. So it was pretty disappointing to shortly thereafter fall into one of my periodic depressions. Those of you who’ve struggled with depression will know that it’s pretty much the opposite of fun. When you’re depressed, even the good times don’t seem so good.

It’s been a relief to pull out of the tailspin. I managed it mostly through willpower alone, forcing myself to keep plodding forward even when I didn’t feel like it. I got out of the house and explored more of the metroplex, which you can read about by searching “out and about” in the tags. I also started an exercise regimen. Not only have I been feeling better physically, it’s also improved my mental health and the way I feel about my nearly 40-year-old body.

Additionally, the freelance editor I hired began working on my first novel in September. As long as I get my butt in gear to put my website together and find a cover artist, this means I should be releasing my first novel by the end of the year, which I’m very excited about. I’ve been writing a lot more lately as well. I’m hoping that, by time she’s finished with my first novel, I’ll have the next one ready for my editor to begin working on.

Even so, despite all the recent accomplishments, I still have this feeling of “not quite right.” I know the issue is that I’ve been spending too much time alone. As an introvert, I don’t mind a healthy dose of alone time, but I can definitely tell when I’m getting too much of it, and I’ve been in that zone for a few months now. I’ve joined a group or two that meet during the day, but they don’t do things that I’m interested in often enough to fill the gap.

My instincts are telling me that I need to find some volunteer work, or possibly a part-time job. I’ve been kicking around this idea for a while now but the need for it is becoming increasingly urgent. Now that October is here, I think I’ll be focusing part of my energy in that direction, looking to add some structure back into my life both through a more rigid schedule/routine and through some type of work. 

In short, things are going pretty well, and I’m feeling a lot better, but there are a few areas of my life that currently could use some improvement. That’s my life in a nutshell. If you’re stopping by to read, why don’t you tell me how September went for you.

Final Reflections on July & August 2014

You may have noticed that this blog took a three-week hiatus in August. I wish I could tell you that I was off on some fabulous vacation, but the truth is that I fell into a pretty deep depression toward the end of July, one that I am, in many ways, still trying to climb out of. While I was at least able to continue writing creatively, all of my other endeavors fell by the wayside for a while, including this blog.

The reasons for this particular depression are many and complex. Two are too personal to discuss on a public blog. Another, much to my chagrin, is related to my feelings about turning 39 in July (I always said I would approach aging with grace and humor, but I find that that was much easier to do when I was in my 20s and early 30s). The final reason is related to my old nemesis, making friends, which always seems so much harder than it should be. Some of the issues I’m dealing with are beyond my control and some are not and it’s all jumbled together in a mess that is difficult to unravel.

What I’ve always hated most about depression is that it prevents you from doing the things that would make you feel better. My mood pretty much always improves when I get out of the house, especially when I’m exploring something new or going someplace I love; when I interact with people, especially if it’s more than just chatting with a barista; when I keep a clean house; and when I get some exercise for both my brain and my body. But when I’m depressed, like most people, I tend to sit on the couch and wallow.

I’ve touted the book Feeling Good by David Burns before, and it is in this book, I believe, that I read that there is no such thing as motivation. Reading that was such a light bulb moment for me. It’s what got me to start writing again. I realized that I’d been waiting around to feel motivated to write and that if I kept doing that, it would never happened. If I wanted to write, I just needed to write. So I did.

It’s the same thing with depression. I believe that I’ve been so much more successful at beating depression in recent years because of this idea about motivation. Instead of waiting around to feel like doing the things that will make me feel better, I make myself do them. There were several days in the last weeks when a conversation like this occurred in my head: “Get up and go do X. You’ll feel better.” “But I don’t feel like doing X.” “Just get up and go do it. Now. Right now. No more sitting here.” And I got up and did it and felt better.

Not that this solved all of my problems or immediately destroyed all of my bad feelings. If you've ever been depressed, though, then you’ll know that every fleeting moment of success or joy takes you one step closer to getting back to your old self. I guess what I’m saying is, I like my chances for continued improvement.

Due to the depression, and due to some financial issues, I haven’t been getting out as much as I should. Or, more accurately, I haven’t been doing much exploring, mostly sticking close to home lately. I’m hoping to get back out into the city in September. I remembered this weekend that there are still a lot of museums I’d like to visit, and I also learned about some other cool places that I want to check out. One great thing about LA is that there’s always certainly a lot to do. 

So there’s your glimpse into the current workings of my inner mind. If you’re stopping by to read, I hope you’ve been having a better time than me. Why don’t you tell me about it?

On Loneliness: Romance

I’ve been having trouble writing this piece. Over the last few days, I slowly began to realize that it was because I felt like I was over-sharing. It’s one thing to provide intimate details about one’s friendships. It’s another thing entirely to dish about one’s romantic life. It made me uncomfortable. Therefore, I decided to tone down the details. We’ll have to see, dear readers, if you still find it interesting and/or relatable.

When I speak of my romantic life, I should be clear that there hasn’t been much of one. I spent most of my life without a partner. I didn’t have my first boyfriend until the summer after I graduated high school. The relationship was short lived. Throughout all of college, and well into my 20s, I never had a serious love interest.

It took me a long time to realize that the problem lay inside of me. To be sure, I was a bit of an ugly duckling. I don’t say that in an attempt to gain sympathy or to hunt for compliments. It honestly took me a while to grow into my looks, or at least to accept them. I was in my late 20s before I began to feel like a beautiful swan. I’ve also always been a bit of a tomboy, just “one of the guys.” For a long time, I thought these things were my problem. Not pretty enough, too much of a boy. Not desirable.

Throughout my early 20s, until I met the man who would later become my fiancé, I often felt used. Inevitably, it seemed, the people I became involved with would get what they wanted from me and leave. Or they wouldn’t get what they wanted and leave. Or, even worse, they would leave at the first sign of trouble. I felt like I could never be perfect enough. As soon as I had a bad day, they’d be out the door, running as fast as they could.

It was humiliating and depressing. I was lonely. And I felt abandoned every single time. It got to the point where I didn’t think anyone would stay. I was surprised when someone did. I felt lucky. “Finally, someone is putting up with my crap,” I thought. My fiancé and I put up with each other’s crap for about five years. Things didn’t work out. In the end, I think we’d both agree that this was for the best. To this day, we’re still good friends. When we broke up, I moved out on my own for the first time in my life: no family, no significant other, and no roommate. Just me. I loved it.

But then something bad happened. I’m not going to tell you what, but in order to put the kibosh on wild speculation, I will tell you that it did not involve any form of assault, sexual or otherwise. But it was a big deal at the time. I felt like my life would never be the same. It forced me to take a step back from everything, to evaluate not only my relationships but also myself.

At the time, I was in the middle of grad school, about to start the eight-month process to write my Master’s thesis in order to complete the program. I decided to focus on that. No more chasing after relationships, or even friendships. I threw myself into writing my thesis and put myself back in therapy.

It was the best decision of my life. I’d been through therapy before on more than one occasion. I don’t regret any of the therapy I’ve been through. Each of my counselors was important in his or her way. I felt like the times I’d gone before had been for fixing specific problems, though, like my anorexia. This one was for fixing the rest of me.

I’m not going to tell you that I had some immediate insight because that’s not what happened. There was no lightning bolt. I completed my Master’s degree and got back out into the world, rebuilding the social life that had been neglected while I wrote my thesis. Some time after I finished my degree, my therapist and I agreed that I’d gotten as much as I could in our sessions. What I discovered in the months after that was that now that I was happy with myself, people were drawn to me.

It wasn’t something I did out of any conscious effort. I was happy because I’d finished my degree, something that had been high on the list of things I’d wanted to do with my life. I was also happy because I finally liked myself. I’d gone through an ordeal and come out the other side with the realization that I could rely on myself, that I was strong and clever and accomplished. I realized that I would never need someone else to make me feel better because I knew how to do that for myself.

Not only did I attract more people – in a nine-month period I was asked out on more dates than during the rest of my life combined – but I also attracted a higher quality of person. While none of those relationships, save for the obvious one, worked out, most of them ended with a minimum of drama. I think this was when I finally started relating to my potential love interests like an adult, rather than like a teenager.

When I met the man who would become my husband, I was immediately drawn to him because he challenged me. I wasn’t used to that. He didn’t just accept my opinions; he wanted to know how I had formed them. It could be frustrating at times – it still is – but I liked it. I liked that he made me think. The first time we met, he had a girlfriend. It was disappointing but I moved on. When we met again a couple of months later, he was single. That night, one of the last things he said to me before we parted ways was that happiness is a choice. I didn’t believe him then.

It took me years to accept that he was right. Now it’s the coda that I live by. No matter what we’ve been through – and we’ve been through a lot – I have chosen to be happy. I feel the strongest, mentally and emotionally, that I’ve ever felt. Of course, I obviously still feel lonely sometimes or I wouldn’t be writing this series. But I never feel lonely in my romantic life.

I don’t worry that my husband is going to leave me. I never feel like he’s putting up with my crap. Neither do I feel like I’m putting up with his. That’s not to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows. It’s not. We rarely fight, but we bicker frequently, and sometimes we don’t like each other very much. But it’s okay. That’s life. That’s living with, and relating to, another human being. I married my husband with every intention of staying together forever. That is still my intention. If, for some reason, things don’t work out, however, I know I’ll be okay because I already am. My husband isn’t a void-filler. He’s the man I love.

Love isn’t like how they portray it in chick flicks. No one is going to complete you. If you have a hole inside of you, you need to fill it yourself. It’s no one’s job to fix you. In hindsight, I can see that this was my problem for all those years. I may not have realized it at the time, but I was looking for someone to build up my self-esteem. No one wants that job. Once I learned how to build it up myself, I became more attractive to other people as a by-product.

Sometimes I wish I'd learned this lesson earlier in life. If I had, though, then I probably would never have found myself here. I like here. So instead of wishing to change the past, I'll just be happy to have learned the lesson at all, while enjoying the present and looking forward to the future.

On Loneliness: Friendships, Part 3

If you haven’t read the rest of this series but are interested in doing so, just click on the loneliness tag at the end of this piece.

I had a lot of fun in college. I made several good friends and scads & scads of acquaintances. It was the first time in my life when I truly felt accepted for who I was. Once I made my way into the adult, working world, however, it quickly became apparent that college had been a lovely microcosm that bore little resemblance to what life is actually like.

Upon graduation, I joined AmeriCorps. Having decided at some point during my senior year of college (rather arbitrarily) that I wanted to live in Portland, Oregon, I would have preferred a position there. However, positions in the Pacific Northwest were very in-demand and difficult to land, especially for a first year volunteer (AmeriCorps is a one-year commitment with a second-year option). I therefore settled for a position in rural Minnesota in my preferred area of interest, adult literacy.

I had a difficult time in Minnesota. The state was beautiful. The people I worked with were lovely. The work was challenging. However, I was a 22-year-old in rural Minnesota, sixty miles from the Twin Cities, and very poor. There weren’t a lot of people my age around. I was also deep in the throes of my second bout of anorexia. It was difficult to find interesting things to do. I met some really great people while I was there, people I still consider friends, but the truth is that I felt deeply isolated.

By the end of my year there, I was very depressed. My anorexia was starting to get out of control, so I was also scared. In spite of all of this, I signed up for a second year of AmeriCorps and managed to land a position in Portland, working in children’s literacy.

I arrived in Portland with high hopes. Even so, Portland and I got off to a rough start. I was still very poor, and living pretty far outside of the “happening” parts of town. Although I got into therapy for my depression and anorexia immediately, I continued to struggle. I’d felt so isolated in Minnesota that I was starved for human affection. I was giving off serious “needy” vibes. I knew it at the time but had little control over it.

My interactions with potential friends always left me dissatisfied. I felt like people didn’t like me. They probably didn’t. No one likes needy people. The more I was rejected, the more needy I became. It was a terrible cycle. It didn’t help that this was before the Internet really got popular. I had no idea how to meet people, especially people who had the same interests as me. I saw people around me – people in the same AmeriCorps program – flourishing and it was so frustrating to me that I couldn’t figure out how to do the same.

For a while, I contemplated leaving. A good friend from college had moved to nearby Seattle. I thought it might be easier to build a life in a city where I already had a friend. However, I always preferred the city of Portland itself to the city of Seattle. So I stayed. And eventually, it worked out. It took a few years, the help of my then-boyfriend, and a job change, but it worked out. Later, after people really figured out how useful the Internet is, and groups like Meet Up and Meet In started, it got easy to meet people.

In the end, I lived in Portland for 10 years and I made a lot of wonderful friends while I was there. It wasn’t always easy though. I had a couple of broken friendships, a haunting reminder of what I’d been through as a child. One of those friendships ended by my choice. The other did not. The one that didn’t was very painful for me. It’s something I still feel bad about to this day, seven years later.

I had grown up a lot in college. I grew up even more in Portland, and matured in ways I never could have expected. I re-learned two very valuable lessons about friendship, lessons I'd forgotten after college:

1. Liking yourself is more important than other people liking you. Validation from yourself is the only kind that matters.

2. You don’t have to be friends with everyone who wants to be friends with you. Pick your friends wisely.

I also learned a third lesson that I continue to find difficult to accept:

3. Very few relationships in your life – romantic or friendly – are meant to last forever.

I left Portland, a city I had grown to love deeply, to follow my newly-minted husband to Hawaii. If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that we’ve moved around a lot since then. In fact, there have been four major and two minor moves in about 5.5 years. It’s been exhausting physically, emotionally, and mentally. It’s also made it very difficult not only to maintain the friendships I already had, but also to build new ones.

I rarely have difficulty with meeting people anymore. As I said, the Internet has made that infinitely easier. Also, I think I’ve become a lot more fun to be around. I’m a lot happier than I used to be, and a lot less serious as well. I joke around a lot. Although I still feel lonely, I rarely feel needy. People, generally, seem to like me. However, although I easily meet and get along with lots of people, I seem to have trouble sealing the deal, so to speak. I have a hard time making the close friendships that I crave.

I think that our transient lifestyle in recent years has a lot to do with this. Unless you’re spending tons of time with a person, you’re not going to build a really deep connection in just a year or two. Some of it is a problem within me, though. Part of me will always be that person who once scared away potential friends. I’m overly conscious of appearing needy or too eager to connect. I tend to be passive when forming friendships, to let the other person make the overt gestures. Because of this, I probably give off a vibe that I’m not as interested in most friendships as I actually am.

Even when I do make what I think are deep connections, I find that, as soon as I move away, they begin to diminish. This was true even of several of the close, long-term friendships I shared in Portland. The truth is that friendships are difficult to maintain over distance. Most people aren’t willing to put in the effort. I don’t think that it’s even a conscious thing. You move, and your friends miss you and you miss them, but eventually, new people are met, new friends are made. You’re still friends, but you’re not as close as you used to be.

Frankly, this has been very disappointing for me. I suppose I’ve been naïve. I keep thinking that my friendships are going to be like ones in movies or books, true blue till the end, but it’s not reality. I think that lesson #3 above has been the toughest lesson of all, but life continues to prove it true over and over again.

A fourth lesson has come out of all this moving around. I’ve learned how to be alone without feeling lonely. Before, I kept loneliness at bay by always being busy. There was even a long stretch in Portland where I had to build alone time into my schedule. These last few years, I’ve gotten comfortable with being by myself. I’ve gotten comfortable with myself. It’s nice. It feels healthier.

Even so, I still go through periods of loneliness. It’s not a longing for interaction; it’s the same longing I’ve always had: deep connections, true blue friends. Sometimes I wonder if I’m searching for something that’s not even possible. Maybe I’ve been fooled by the social narrative. Maybe no one has the kind of friendships I’m looking for. Somehow, I’m not convinced. I think what I want is out there.

I will continue to look. I will continue to work on myself and my hang-ups. I'll probably also continue to feel frustration, but it's a price I'm willing to pay. My hope is that now we're settled for good (in theory), I'll be able to start building strong friendships. The adventure that is life marches on. Most of the time, it feels like I'm just along for the ride.

On Loneliness: Friendships, Part 2

Note: These posts are not intended to give any offense. They are a representation of my thoughts, feelings, and perceptions at the time. AKA, if you considered yourself my friend in high school but don’t see yourself mentioned here, please don’t get mad at me.

Links to Previous Posts in This Series:

Introduction

My Upbringing

Friendships, Part 1

In my last post, I discussed my childhood and junior high friendships, a time when I was left abandoned by friends more than once. Today I’ll mostly be talking about my friendships in high school, a time when I felt I powerless in my friendships.

In high school, I did a better job of making friends than I had when I was younger, especially during my junior and senior years, when I started to come out of my shell (and, thereby, gained a lot of acquaintance friends). My first close friends were two sisters whom I will give the nicknames Red and Jean because their initials happen to coincide with friends referred to in my last post. Red and Jean weren’t sisters by blood. Jean’s father was dating Red’s mother. They and several siblings all lived together as a big, blended family.

Red and Jean were rather “worldly” in comparison to me. Both of them had older boyfriends (brothers, actually, if I recall correctly). They’d had, and knew a lot about, sex. They drank. Red got multiple tattoos while we were still teenagers. I’m sure that most adults looked at them and saw trouble. I wouldn’t say that they were “wild” per se, but even as a kid I understood that I couldn’t be like them if I ever wanted to escape the small-town life that I so hated.

People must have wondered what a goody two-shoes like me was doing hanging around with girls like that. In comparison to them, I was incredibly naïve. We weren’t the best fit as friends. We had little in common. They were kind to me, though, and encouraged me to be less shy. I was in awe of their boldness. All of the power in the relationship belonged to them, because I was so grateful for their friendship. It wasn’t like they ever tried to abuse that power, but the imbalance was there nonetheless.

I often felt starved for their attention, especially after they got serious with their boyfriends. I would have never said a word to them about it though. I was too afraid of losing their friendship. When I was sixteen, I wrote a poem about them (which I never showed them). It reads, in part: “I could never make you understand/The need I have to hold your hand/I could never hope that you would know/That I feel alone even when you touch me so.”

After all these years, those words still hurt when I read them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my friendship with Red and Jean did not survive the high school years.

The summer I turned fifteen, I suffered through a terrible bout of anorexia. I went through it largely by myself. I think that, for the most part, it was a symptom of how out of control my life felt to me. My world was so small and constricted and I wanted so much more. I felt trapped and helpless. One of the few things I could control was what I ate. In a weird way, anorexia gave me power.

Although it only lasted a few months, it was severe. I had weighed less than 90 pounds to start. By time it was over, I was under 70. It’s very possible that I was close to death. In the end, my mother – forever suspicious of therapists – basically force-fed me and I “got over it.” Anorexia wouldn’t rear its ugly head again for six years. (On a happier note, when I moved to Portland in 1998, I finally got professional help & haven’t had a physical manifestation of the disease since. However, the mental side of anorexia is something that will require constant vigilance to keep at bay for the rest of my life.)

Sometime during my sophomore year, I believe, I became close friends with a girl I’ll call Poetry. She was yet another “troubled” girl. Like me, her troubles were more of the mental variety, and hers were more serious. Despite the pseudonym, I don’t feel comfortable delving into her problems here. Just know that they were bad enough that she was eventually sent to boarding school, where we continued a close friendship as pen pals.

Poetry definitely held all the power in our friendship. I remember feeling surprised when she first started talking to me. Why would someone cool and interesting like her want to be friends with me? With the advantage of maturity, I can now see that my problem here wasn’t my friends but me. Obviously, I had severe self-esteem issues. As I kid, though, I didn’t see it that way. I felt profoundly lucky whenever someone wanted to be my friend.

Our friendship did survive into early college, until circumstances that were essentially beyond my control created a rift. They involved a boy. It was not a love triangle, but when I was pressured to be an intermediary, I called it quits. (Sorry to be cryptic, but it’s definitely not something I want to be specific about in a public forum.) I wouldn’t speak to Poetry for years and years after that, although the wonders of social media brought us back in contact, briefly, a few years ago. Although our friendship didn’t re-blossom as I might have hoped, I can report that, at the time at least, she was doing well.

When I was a junior, I met Julie. She was new in town. She’d grown up in another part of the state, living with her mother after her parents had split. However, her mother was physically abusive and, eventually, her father got custody. I don’t recall the details of how we first met or how we became friends.

Julie was a self-described “weirdo.” She liked all the same uncool sci fi & fantasy stuff that I liked. She was loud & obnoxious (igniting, I think, my life-long love for people who are loud & obnoxious). Despite everything she’d been through, she was a strong, confident person who knew what she wanted. She knew who she was. She genuinely didn’t care what other people thought of her. That was mind-blowing to my teenaged self. I really admired her.

Even so, there was a definite power imbalance in our relationship. Like all the other girls, I felt like she was doing me a favor by being my friend. It never occurred to me that my friendship was also valuable. Remember, self-esteem issues = me. I didn’t like myself in high school, so it was difficult for me to understand why anyone else would. Also, by that point, two of my best friends had already abandoned me. It seemed like something that could and would happen to me again at any moment. I spent a lot of my teen years feeling so desperately needy. I suppose a lot of people felt that way, but I didn’t understand that at the time. I felt alone.

As many of you know, my friendship with Julie has a tragic ending. After high school, we drifted apart. Her life took some truly wacky turns, leaving it difficult for me to relate to her. Honestly, I was kind of a judgmental asshole for a while. I eventually got over it and we had just begun to rebuild a friendship when, nearly ten years ago now, she was killed in a horseback riding accident. I still miss her like crazy.

Compared to my earlier years, college was a cakewalk. I grew up a lot in college. I learned to start liking myself (although that would be a lesson I’d have to learn over and over again for YEARS). I learned that others will like you for who you are and, if they don’t, that they’re not people you should be wasting your time on. I learned that you don’t have to be friends with everyone who wants to be friends with you.

I made friends easily in college. Perhaps that seems like an anti-climactic way to end this post, but it’s the truth. While many of the friends I made were of the superficial sort, more acquaintances than anything else, there were several others whose friendships I still have and cherish.

College was a good time but it didn't magically make my life, or me, perfect. My troubles in general followed me into adulthood. So too did my troubles with friendship. In the next installment of this series, we'll see how my friendships evolved as I aged.

Final Reflections on 2013

The dust has settled on our move. Our stuff is unpacked. The empty boxes have all been thrown away. We still need to put up our artwork, and there are a few pieces of furniture we’ll need to purchase over time. Essentially, we’re still getting settled in, and I’m in the process of figuring out what our new normal is. Through the din, though, I can hear my creative side, stifled for so many months, clamoring to be let out.

Now seems as good a time as any to get back to my blog, and to reflect on what has so recently passed.

As we neared the end of 2013, before I found out that we were moving, I’d been feeling like it had been a year where not much had happened. I’d started to worry that perhaps I was running in place, that I hadn’t accomplished much. An actual reflection on the year proved this to be untrue: my mother’s estate closed after nearly two years; we paid off two cars; we weathered a small financial crisis; I got my first rejection from a publisher; and I wrote a lot, even if I didn’t finish most of what I started.

In short, it was a pretty busy year.

Even so, as December came to a close, I would catch myself secretly wishing for a shake-up of the status quo. I was yearning for something big to change. Then, out of the blue, a job opportunity arose for my husband and the next thing I knew, we were moving halfway across the country (again). I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Nearly all of our moves have happened this quickly. Yet I still feel a bit shell shocked by it all. While I might have been looking for a big change, I wasn’t exactly hoping that everything would change. “Be careful what you wish for” indeed.

Still, what’s done is done, and I don’t feel bad about it. I’m optimistic. I believe that this move will ultimately prove to be the right one for us. And while I might not be ready to jump head first into making a new life here – all of the starting over has, quite frankly, left me rather fatigued – I am ready to jump head first into something else: publishing.

I feel that 2014 is the year to finally get my novels out there, even if I have to do it myself. I’m tired of letting my fears (of rejection, of criticism, etc.) hold me back. So while I’ll continue writing, I’m going to start putting a website together, and seeking an editor, and a cover artist. I’m going to get this stuff figured out because it’s well past time that I do. If no one buys my books, I’m sure I’ll be disappointed. How could I not be? But I think that being disappointed in that way would be better than being disappointed in myself for never trying.

Wish me luck! I have no idea what I'm doing, so if you have any advice, feel free to give it to me. And while you're here, why don't you tell me how 2013 went for you?

On Loneliness: Friendships, Part 1

The more I thought about the topic of friendship, the more I realized that I have a lot to say about it. Therefore, I’ve decided to break this section of the series into three parts. This first part will deal with my childhood & junior high friendships; the second with my high school & college friendships; and the third part will cover adult friendships & conclusions.

I’m one of those people who, on the surface, appears to be really good at friendships. At least, I’m friendly with a lot of people. I have been since college. How can you be lonely? I feel like people are thinking. You know so many people. While that’s true, my friendships have rarely been as close as I would like. Because my family has never been particularly tight, friendships have always been very important to me. However, I’ve always secretly felt that I’m not as important to my friends as they are to me.

Honestly, I’m pretty sure the problem is me. I’m shy about friendships. I like to play my hand pretty close to my chest, not letting people know how much I like them. I’m afraid of appearing overly eager or desperate or, god forbid, needy. I fear rejection.

I’m positive that the seeds of this fear were sown in my childhood, where I faced rejection early and often.

My childhood best friend was the girl who lived across the street. We’ll call her K. We were the same age, but went to different elementary schools. Our friendship mostly stayed in the neighborhood. As I recall it, we were pretty tight.

Things changed the summer before we started junior high together. A girl who lived down the street from us, who was a couple of years younger, broke us up. It was something I didn’t understand then. I still don’t really understand it today, nearly 30 years later. I’m not sure what her end game was. Maybe she was just being evil in the way that girls that age can be evil. The details are fuzzy for me now, but I clearly remember her telling us lies about things each of us supposedly said about the other.

I’m not sure why it worked. As I remember it, I didn’t believe her lies, but K did (granted, my memory could be faulty, allowing me to remember things the way I want rather than how they were). It was very bewildering and painful. In the end, I went into junior high without a best friend. K and I never really made up. Years later, when we were in high school, we discussed the break up briefly and had a laugh about it. But we were never friends again.

In junior high, I had two close girlfriends, N and C. If my memory serves correct, N and I were closer in sixth grade, and I became close to C later, after she moved from another state into my neighborhood. C and I were close enough that we chose to be locker partners in eighth grade, a huge deal because we were required to carry our eighth grade locker partners over into ninth grade, which was at the high school.

Junior high was a tough time for me. I’d been teased to some extent in elementary school, but it was really bad in junior high. Kids were mean. I was easy pickings. N was the first in my long string of friendships with girls that I would now call “troubled.” She came from an even rougher background than me. She lived in a trailer park – a huge social stigma where I grew up. She was even more awkward looks-wise than me. The kids were even meaner to her than they were to me. That’s probably what brought us together. We were united in misery.

C, on the other hand, was pretty normal. I think I started out as a friend of convenience for her. Since she was new to the area, and we lived only a few doors down from one another, I was one of the first people she met. Even so, we quickly became close. I liked her a lot.

I don’t know for sure what happened between me and C. I don’t remember if we had an actual falling out over something. I don’t think so, because as I recall it, partway through eighth grade, C just started to be mean to me out of nowhere. It actually got pretty bad. When I fell in gym one day and sprained my arm and had to go to the hospital, I came back to school the next day to find that C had torn down all of my pictures in our shared locker. This was nothing like it had been with K, where we broke up and then essentially ignored one another. C had a lot of vitriol toward me. Once again, I was thoroughly bewildered.

In hindsight, I believe that C had finally figured out that being friends with me was social suicide, so she dumped me. In high school, she moved on to a more popular clique (not that it was hard to find a group more popular than me). After muddling through ninth grade as uneasy locker partners, we never spoke again.

At the same time, my friendship with N cooled. I don’t remember why. We were never not friends; we just weren’t as close anymore. I know my mother didn’t approve of her, but that probably had little to do with it. Now, I wonder if I did to her what C had done to me, dumping her because she was even lower on the social totem pole than me. I hope this is not the case, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Most preteens are assholes, even me. Whatever the problem, she didn’t deserve my ingratitude. She was really nice. A good friend. 

N got pregnant in high school and dropped out. I’ve never spoken to her again, although she kindly left condolences on my mother’s online obituary (actually, so did K).

It’s probably important here to reiterate that all of this was happening amidst a home environment where I was rarely encouraged to pursue friendships. In fact, my mom often made it difficult to have friends, not allowing parties or sleepovers, complaining if I was on the phone too long, refusing to drive me places, etc. I don’t know if this was a concerted effort on her part to deny me friends or just a lot of different quirks of her personality coming together in a very negative way.

The upshot is, I had a lot of odds stacked against me, and although I struggled hard against them, by time I was fourteen, I’d already been rejected by two of my closest friends. It hurt and it affected the way that I saw friendship from there on out.

Join me next time to discover if I fared any better at friendships in high school.