Bending Pieces That Still Don't Fit

I spent the majority of my 25-year-old self feeling alone amongst those who surround me. As I enter my 26th year, it seems nothing has changed. I still don't fit, I still don't belong. These thoughts plague my mind and I can't seem to find that sense of belonging so many others hold with ease. I'm lonely. This is not what twenty-something lives should be.

Our twenties are our best years. (Right?) It's when we have the best times with the best folks and drink the best drinks and dance our asses off at the best bars. It's like college - but better. (Right?) This is the expectation I had and yet here I sit in my noisy lower-class neighborhood apartment in my ratty sweatpants listening to mopey 90's pop music because I can't find a job in my career field and I could only find a seasonal job I am overqualified and under trained for. Great. I'm sure Mom and Dad are proud.

I'm embarrassed of myself. I am ashamed and feel like a fool for believing life in California would be such a breeze. I was determined for success, prepared for the higher cost of living and ready to manage the small paychecks until I was able to move up to bigger things...but no paychecks at all was not part of the plan. The dream started off so great but now I am surrounded by the reality of dwindling hope.

This is about the time where your friends realize you need some help and swoop in to cheer you up, distract you from your misery and encourage you that things will indeed get better. [crickets chirping] Ah, yes. Friends. I don't have very many of those and of the few I have, I have few things in common with them anymore.

The old friends from high school years have all moved on to marriage, bills and babies. No thank you.
The new friends are hard to keep for long. They drift in an out depending on schedules, work location and dating status.

There is a big group of folks down here in Los Angeles we call our friends. Truly we all just share a few simple facts in common: We're originally from Washington State and we went to the same University...that does not a friend make. It's taken me awhile to realize the difference between friend and person-who-seems-like-they-could-and-would-be-a-friend-but-are-not... and with the help of multiple non-invites to events this group holds together, its fairly clear I am not their friend. We are friendly to one another, but not friends. There is a difference.

No one calls, no one texts, heck - they barely respond to Facebook events I try to plan. This is a new low - a very lonely low.

I can't blame them completely for the lack of interest in me as a human-being. Perhaps I'm not that interesting. I'll watch sports but I could care less about the stats or the 30-bomb of cheap beers on the coffee table that should be chugged upon touchdown or score. I don't like overly crowded places and I HATE having to circle the block eight times to find the cheapest of the overpriced parking lots. I also don't like staying up past midnight for no good reason...if nothings happening, I'm going to bed. Basically I am a 70-year-old woman trapped in a 20-somethings body (though I'm most certain the old woman would take much more advantage of this 20-something body than I currently am).

I don't know what I would rather be doing, I just know the above events don't interest me. I want to do grown up things with people who are genuinely nice. The group of LA folks are straight of out Mean Girls (I'd hate to see my page in their burn book, I'm sure it's not flattering). At this point, it's not even that I feel I don't belong, it's that I'm not even invited to the event where I will feel like I don't belong.

So there it is. Maybe I feel like I don't fit in simply because I don't.
Perhaps I am better matched with the 30-something crowd...or at least the 70+ crowd. Bingo! 

Humble Friday

I found myself thumbing through memory lane this evening as I organized photos from years gone by. The memories and curiosity led me on a massive online hunt for two friends I haven't seen or spoken to in about twenty years.

The first, my best/only real friend from kindergarden through maybe a few years of grade school (...the timeline is foggy). We weren't in the same class but we lived near each other and we'd often get together with our dad's for fun weekend outings.

The second, my best friend from middle school. We had a lot of fun and got into a little trouble together as we sorted our way through puberty. I admired her and looking back; I was definietly her awkward sidekick, though I didn't feel like it at the time. She was beautiful and cool and all the boys like her, plus she shopped at places like Nordstrom and always had the best name brands of clothing and shoes.

With a few memories like parent names and the area they lived - oh, and the Nexis account I still have access to for another week, I set out to track them down! My search results were limited...both women have all but zero existence on the internet and social media sites, google, linkedin, etc. This instantly had me thinking, "Was it me?" followed shortly after by, "No personal information available online, how DO you do that?!".

The few facts I was able to uncover saddened me greatly. I have no idea where or what my kindergarden pal is up to now but I did find that her mother passed away in 2005. One year before my friend would have graduated high school. My middle school friend has a mug shot listed with a few arrest records for multiple possessions of a controlled substance and DUI's. I don't know what happened to these women, but I hope they are OK.

I can't help but feel guilty that despite all the circumstances, the scenarios, the accusations whispered from others that I was the bad influence because I came from a broken home and the doubt placed upon my mother that her children would never amount to anything because we are "products of divorce"; how did I make the cut?

How am I the one that is OK?

It's an aha moment, that's for sure. I am so lucky. So blessed. So amazed that I somehow turned out OK- more than OK. I called my mother to ask her how we got so lucky...prayer, she said. I am so humbled the Lord protected me from what could have been. I don't deserve this good fortune but I am so grateful for the honor.

The Friend Fight

Last night we got into a fight. I instigated, he withdrew. And now I find I'm more confused about this relationship than ever before. We're changing, or at least one of us is. I'm not sure about us anymore...but to be fair, I was never sure about us. And I don't know how he feels because he is an empty heart.

It's funny I get upset with him for not being an open and honest book to those around him when here I am, keeping my feelings hidden from view because I don't think he'd understand and I'm scared to take the chance. 

The Dilemma: He's not the man he advertised himself to be and I'm not willing to settle for who he is now. 

I believe a man; a partner...should be connected in a way no friend or foe can break through or take away from. Last night I was shown I am not with THAT partner. Instead I am with a man...a boy really, who would prefer to make a mockery of my feelings with our mutual friends. That hurt. It hurt that he threw me under the bus and it hurt more to see the text messages and laughing at my expense. Mutual friend no more. 

I feel betrayed, ridiculed, sad, confused.
I can't wait until these feelings pass and I feel nothing. 

Confessions Of An Introvert

I was invited to dinner tonight but I said, "No, thank you" and then I have the nerve to come home, turn on some sad music and feel sorry for myself. I realize now this depression is a product of my own creation...but I can't help myself. 

It's odd how you can feel yourself slip in and out of moods. I feel myself diving into a sad puddle of solidarity and while I like to tell myself I should shake it off and be happy, there's something about going to a deep, dark place that I secretly revel in. It's me being 100% with me and it gives me a moment to think and be who I am verses who I think I am and who I think I need to be. 

Truth: I don't where where all my friends went. 
Honest Truth: I thought I was a social butterfly but come to think of it, I'm in bed by 9 and I'm probably not that much fun to be around anymore. 

Communication between one group of friends is almost entirely via my boyfriend. They are the sports watching, beer drinking lot that I enjoy...but not for every sporting event known to man! Communication with my old gang of friends from home has been interrupted by a continued (and seemingly never-ending!!) flow of children and marriages and lives that I simply can't identify with. I struggle to find things to talk about and can't stand when their children interrupt our conversations. (RUDE!) Work friends don't count, they're like family...kind of forced upon you. Not that I'm complaining, I enjoy most everyone at work and in my family. 

I don't get invited to many things anymore...and I don't blame anyone because after all, it's ME who's denying dinners and outings left and right. I wouldn't ask myself to go anywhere either. Part of my reasoning for the denial is I'm feeling broke...four hundred something bucks a week is tough to hang on to in this city of exorbitant monthly rent and bills. The other part is, I'm lazy. I'm tired after a 10-hour workday and don't have the energy most nights to do anything but feed my cat. I am the oldest 25-year-old I know. And yes, I do watch Jeopardy when I'm home in time to do so. 

....to be continued. It's sweatpants time.