Blue

Last Friday I accidentally said some things to someone I shouldn't have. Not mean or hurtful things, just over-sharing things. A friend suggested some specific damage control, which I did Sunday night, but it included using the word estranged, and that makes me really sad. The person hasn't responded.*

It's not a big deal in the scheme of things - it's someone I have never been close with, I didn't hurt her feelings, I didn't ruin her life, and this won't negatively affect my life.

Except that I can't help but think she hasn't responded because she doesn't want to be involved. Which is fine. That's her right. Absolutely her right.

It just makes me sad. On multiple levels.

1. I very badly need to talk about, and talk through, some big things. And I can't. Because there is noone there to listen. As that need builds and builds like a snowball falling down a steep hill, I wind up accidentally talking about these things to people I shouldn't, which is what happened on Friday.

2. I hate that people only want to know you when life is good. Nobody ever wants to be involved when things are difficult. On one hand I understand - I don't want to get involved with people who have big problematic dramatic lives. (I do not have a big problematic dramatic life.) But on the other hand, it just sucks to be disappointed in people. Maybe I'm expecting too much, and should lower my expectations. California is so damn hippydippy, with "if you put it out there, the universe will bring it back to you." And I really, really want to believe that. So I put it out there all the time. Because I could really use it coming back to me. Only it almost never does. And that really bums me out.

3. I don't like thinking of myself as estranged from people. I don't like being unable to resolve the estrangement. I don't like the phoniness involved in pretending the estrangement is not there.

To recap. I am feeling sad. I am feeling alone. I am feeling sad about feeling alone. Which makes me feel even more sad. And it makes me sad that nobody seems to care enough to do anything to help me not be sad. Not that it's anyone else's job but my one. When I worked in downtown Fort Lauderdale, across the street from my building there was a church. It had a daycare with a yard, and a few steps leading up to the door. A homeless man was often sitting on the steps asking for change. "Change comes from within."

Some changes do. But some don't.

*I wrote the above at work this afternoon. I do that often - write at work and e-mail it to myself, and then post at home. Tonight I found that the person I'd written to had in fact written back. Her very first sentence was an emphatic apology for having taken so long, and despite not knowing me well, immediately addressed my core feelings, saying she never wanted me to have had second thoughts about the note I'd sent.

Other things were said too, and ultimately I got all teary over it. In a good way. I feel better now.