These past few months of therapy, months of learning a lot about myself, months of backsliding but also months of progress have all helped me to figure out more of what it is I truly want. The answer used to just be “to be happy.” However that isn’t as easy of a task to grasp when you aren’t quite sure what it is that makes you happy. You’re well aware of the things and situations that make you unhappy. You’ve had plenty of those throughout your life, but what is it that puts a smile on your face? That gives your life meaning? As I wrote previously, something that has helped out immensely has been just stopping being so damn judgmental of myself. I’m not the person I used to be and I am not as different.. or “weird” as I tended to make myself out to be. Sure I can be a bit awkward from time to time, but a lot of that is more to do with my anxieties forcing me to censor myself rather than a lack of social ability. While I’ll admit that still does have some part in it. Unsurprisingly as my anxieties have decreased and I have spent more time with people I am more comfortable with and allowing myself some distance from those that I am not, that self-censoring and the awkward silences seem to lessen severely. And that brings me unto what it is I have also been searching for, Despite having anxiety with social situations, and being introverted so my social energy tends to deplete after a while, I am still someone who desires these social interactions and most importantly, some sort of connection with people.
Putting up those walls and keeping a very distant approach with my friendships and even admittedly into my relationships as well worked for a while but obviously it left me feeling close with pretty much not a single person in my life. I had friends, I had a girlfriend but I still felt incredibly lonely and I couldn’t figure out why. So much of how I quickly changed the way I treat my relationships was done to protect myself from past kinds of relationships and how I’ve felt and acted during those relationships (I was just as much worried that the old me would reappear just as much as I were afraid of getting involved with the next Summer..) but it went against what I really wanted which is this feeling of knowing someone who “gets me.” I’ve been slowly removing those walls; I’m being a lot more honest with myself to others about my feelings and what it is I want from friendships– well more so my limits. And because of that the friendships I have made or have strengthened are so much more meaningful and I feel just as much a part of their lives as they are in mine. I’m finding my pack and with that I’m slowly finding more that makes me happy, more of the people who make me happy. I’ve kind of been of doing my own thing for a while, hence why the gap between this post and last. I actually started this post a while ago like right after my trip to the Grand Canyon with some good friends of mine, but I guess I got distracted with some other things. I’ve gotten back into coding again which feels nice, what feels even more nice is to be SO damn close to finishing this game I remember showing people doodle concept art of in high school.. so, yeah I just want to finally say I’ve finished something. I didn’t walk away from this. It’s also gratifying and a little validating to release something and have people actually begin to enjoy it and take interest. The comments have gone from “This game sucks balls” and “Worst game ever wtf” to well to less of those..
In starting working on this game again I actually got a blast from the past from my old life from my, I’m embarrassed to say it, “sonic fangame” days. But they were actually really excited I was started working on it again and he started talking about the projects of his own and we just caught up after not talking in like nearly six or seven years. It was almost like no time had passed and we were getting along just like it was 2010 again it’s weird, but really nice. Especially after one of my closest and best friendships has come from someone who I fought with and eventually put my foot down and walked away. Months later we just talked again and none of that shit mattered anymore. And honestly it really didn’t. Funny how less of a life or death situation certain matters become when you feel less defensive. The medication, therapy, and just life experience probably helped too but when you become more willing to let things in and especially people in that make you happy without any fear or added judgement of “you shouldn’t be this happy with her.. you shouldn’t feel THIS in love. it’s not normal.” I’ve avoided heavily to I suppose make up for my severe attachment issues. I didn’t want to be too needy or too much of a burden so I just stay away completely. Wait for them to message me first. I had a really close relationship with someone who I had been thinking about a little bit more the past week or so just because I remember their birthday had just recently passed and I had wanted to message them. Eventually, I decided against it because well it’s been almost a year since we’ve been friends. I know how I feel about them, I’ve worked it all out long ago– there part it in it, mine, why I had to do what I did, maybe why they did what they did (but mostly that it really didn’t matter). What I’m taking too long to say is that there came a time where I allowed myself to admit yes, I do love and care about them. They are one of the best friends I have ever had. All future relationships admittedly have almost been in comparison, how.. comfortable do I feel with this person. How well do I feel I’m being seen? However I also have admitted to myself that I did too have to leave. I was in a bad place and the only way I could get out of that was to unfortunately also leave that friendship.– Anyway, how I feel about them to me is in total clarity, but I don’t know how they feel about me. Other than a tumblr post months ago saying I could message them, but my mind then started racing “what does she mean? is she open to being friends again? if i go in wanting that will I get extremely disappointed?” And I knew at that time in my life any hope I managed to recoup that was ruined would ruin me as well. So no.. judging by all that I knew I was not ready then. I don’t know how they feel now and my mind raced less when thinking about messaging them but I mean I still didn’t end up doing it so obviously I still have some problem with overthinking things.
A bit ironic maybe. I can message an old friend we had beef with and make up easily, I can get messaged by a person I haven’t talked to in nearly a decade and still feel like no time has passed at all.. then why couldn’t I just message them? This is where my group buddies would tell me I should be checking my facts, which yeah I should be.. and this situation really isn’t much different from any of the others. To me, and maybe it might seem irrational to others but to me it isn’t, and I’m just going to be upfront about it is, there is a WHOLE lot more at stake with messaging this person than someone I was entirely ready to cut ties permanently with. Sure they’re my best friend now.. but I didn’t know that I was going to feel so connected with and close to this person THEN.. This other friend was a relationship that meant a lot to me, one which I had to begrudgingly remove myself from, one who I’m even now unwilling to give them a pseudonym on this site because of its association to my “Undelivered Letters” and those are solely reserved for people I intend/expect to never interact with again. Hence the hesitation. A no from them would hurt a lot more needless to say. Or even worse. What if they say yes, and we get back into our old habits. I don’t want to be hurt again and even more so I don’t want to hurt them anymore. All of that went through my head and of course those high stakes made the anxiety of messaging them too high so I decided not too. Doubt they’d want to talk anyway. Oh on top of all that I also was completely honest with myself I think the urge to message them was heavily influenced by the fact that I was going through a bit of a depression and I hadn’t decided whether that to me was a negative or positive reason for wanting to reach out, other than the very obvious reason which is I just plain missed them and the only reason I thought messaging might be possible is I see they still read my posts even now after all this time. Don’t know whether that’s out of concern, curiosity, affection, if they miss me or if it’s out of spite. In fact that last one hadn’t even crossed my mind until I talked about feeling like I wanted to message this person with a friend, and their response was.. “Oh yeah they are probably trying to make sure you’re doing worse off than them, like most people do with their exes.” And I don’t know, I feel like we’re probably 6 months past that point but again I don’t know because tumblr posts and my blog posts are pretty much the only way we have communicated, however I still guess technically that might be an option. I haven’t bothered to seriously ask myself those questions because whatever THIS has worked for what it is.
As I went into this long tangent about my old friend, I mentioned them now.. mainly because the timing means they’re in my general consciousness but also because that was what I’m looking for. People who feel like my pack. Who I feel comfortable with, who I can open up to.. and now I’m way more aware that there’s levels of comfortability and you can keep others a certain distance and another another distance and have those still be equally good friendships. That’s helping sort of find more people that make me happy but I mentioned my trip to the Grand Canyon and that whole week out there in Arizona with the entire gang. We basically drove across the entire state, most of us not knowing where the fuck we were so we got lost but that didn’t matter any. Who knew Arizona had so much snow? I swear for a good two hours it felt like we were driving down Minnesota or somewhere down the midwest in the Winter. It was beautiful. I also have an uncontrollable fear of heights so as everybody was peering and leaning over the edge I stood just a FEW feet back. That was until my friend saw I wasn’t with the rest of them and well, let’s just say when you are holding the hand of someone who makes you feel safe.. fear becomes a mere memory. I have a few more adventures planned for this year and I’m trying to spend more time with those I’ve considered in my pack. And not completely dismissing those who aren’t in my pack either, they are still my good friends as well. And I’m open to the idea that I might find more in my pack to invite to our adventures. I always felt like I wasn’t really made for most people, but that was mostly because I was spending a lot of time with people made me feel I wasn’t for them. Some people just get along better with other people. I didn’t have to make it more than that. I think that week was the first time I felt truly happy and didn’t feel like there was some other outside influence (love, infatuation, or the big one.. my chemical imbalances causing the whole mood swing thing). And what I took from that adventure has helped me find more and more little moments that bring me the same kind of “uninfluenced” happiness I have been seeking.
Till the next one,
T.