I Miss Having Friends

Sorry, this post is a little bit of a downer, but I felt the need to write about it, let it out a touch.  If you're having a hard time with depression or something please don't read this.  It won't help, it's not a boost.  I'm having a hard time just writing it and being willing to share it with ANYONE else because people have this opinion of me that I'm always happy, or that life is fine for me, or that I don't get depressed or sad because I'm a strong person.  All of those assumptions are completely wrong, so this post is more of a little bit of what life is actually like for me.  These feelings plague me, even as I work to remedy them year after year after year.

I promise I won't continually write posts like this.  I just needed to get this one out.  Maybe other's feel the same way.

When I was younger, pre-teen to teenager and even into early adult life, I had friends, some very different from who I was and what my beliefs were, but they were wonderful to me. I had a few really good friends that I loved spending time with.  They meant the world to me!  We had similar interests, loved to do similar things, uplifted each other, motivated each other, and I made a huge effort to be there for them, and some of them, though very few, made a similar effort for me.  I really didn't feel alone during those days, I felt like I could share my thoughts and feelings about things, that if I was in need there was someone there that understood me, that would jump to help me just like I would for them.  And by jump I mean I would fly, take a train, road trip, whatever needed to help out those friends.  I would drop just about anything to help them on a moments notice if they were in great need.  All other things could wait, and once in a great while one of those close friends would do the same for me.  I loved them so much.

I don't know what happened, but they're all gone.  

All the middle school and high school friends, all the college friends, mission friends, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't know how to make friends anymore because I try to at church, or even outside of church, and everyone is so busy with life that I become an acquaintance to everyone rather than an actual friend I can sit down and chat with.  No one wants to talk with me, very rarely do people reach out to me unless they want something from me, which I'm happy to help!  I love helping people, especially when they ask for it and I genuinely find other's stories interesting and worth my time, but at the same time, I don't have anyone like myself to talk to, to connect with regularly, to relate to or just have fun with anymore.  There's no 'girl time', no 'going out with friends', no 'gotta help my friend out with-' or 'my friend is coming over to help out'.  People gloss over me for the most part, and no one seems to have energy to connect anymore.  I'm just another face and old memory.  I feel like most my old friends treat me as if I'm already dead or something; they forget that I still live. 

There's a lot of 'I' in all of this, and that idea often flitters through my brain, because I've been taught to look outside myself; perhaps other's feel the same way and I can break the trend?  Maybe I can be the friend that someone else needs.  Maybe I can lose myself in serving and thinking about others.  I should be the one to reach out to others who need the same thing.  I've heard all of those paths mentioned from other people, and my brain regurgitates them often. So I try them; I try to reach out to new people at church or at my kid's school, or neighbors again and again and again.  I try to get in contact with old roommates, mission companions on occasion, or even high school friends.  I try in little ways at times as not to 'bother' them or interrupt their lives too much. I want to create bonds, I don't want to make a nuisance of myself.  

Apparently none of that works, or perhaps it made those people feel special and happy inside but I have no idea because they don't ever contact me back, or if they do it's a quick reply, almost as if they are trying to be polite but aren't actually interested in chatting with me.  At all.  Once in a while I'll get to chat with a person that seems like they'd be a great friend, and we really connect the few times we get to chat, but then long stretches go by where they become busy and I don't want to add more stress than they already have, so I wait and hope they remember me.  Usually they don't.  Or if they do they don't make any effort to contact me.  

So for the most part I cry to myself, I go out by myself (to the grocery store mostly), I read about other peoples accomplishments in art or family or other things that interest me, and I keep it all to myself.  Unless I call my dad and talk his poor ear off.  I've dragged my husband a 'bout from time to time but I can tell he dreads going and doing some of the things I really want to, so then I just feel guilty and don't bring him or don't go at all.  I pray for Heavenly Father to send me a friend, to help me find someone, to help me make those connections again.  I've been praying for a few years now.  Not much has happened, but I'm trying still because sometimes the Lord expects us to be patient.  I just hope I don't have to wait until heaven.  I don't want to feel alone that long.

My husband is an amazing man, and most the time I can chat with him about something basic; games, politics, opinions, home reno, travel ideas, dealing with kids, retirement, hiking, armored combat league, but when it comes to the things that I'm really excited about, books and my stories, events, art stuff, animals and personal goals and dreams, they aren't as relatable to him and it's hard to get in depth.  Yes we laugh and share things, yes I love him and feel loved by him, and yes I trust him, but he has his own areas of interests and I think it's hard for him to see the importance in me pursuing my own interests as well because they are so different from his own.  I'm not mad at him, nor do I think it a terrible thing that he likes such different things and doesn't understand my likes all the time, I actually encourage him to pursue the things he loves, and sometimes he tries to encourage me too, though I think he regrets having to take the kids when I do paint.  They aren't exactly mild children.

So at this point I have no one, I don't feel the encouragement, I don't feel the deep connection with others like me, I don't feel like I have anyone that really understands me at all, and most the people I reach out to don't realize how desperate I am to just have a friend.  A close friend again.  Someone that calls/texts me back, that wants to make an effort to be there as well, that plans outings and such, with or without kids, to gallery events or fairs, or just to try a new market or go shopping for a bit.  Or even to just sit down at a restaurant or café and just talk!  I loved having art buddies because we could share information and were always so excited to progress and learn together.  One of my best friends wasn't even an artist, but we loved so many of the same things that it didn't matter at all.  We had so much fun, we laughed so much, and always looked forward to getting together.  We spent years like that!  After I got married it was like she disappeared though, as if she didn't want to reconnect with me, not even when we had young kids around the same time, and she never reached out to me again.  Responses were simple replies that showed she obviously didn't feel like chatting with me.  It hurts a lot, thinking about that.  To me she was still one of my best friends and I still thought we had so many years to share as such, but apparently she didn't think the same.  I really miss her.  

I think often about the past, probably more than I should, because I feel terribly alone and heavy these days and it doesn't help.  

I am my only motivation within my little artworld now, along with all the ghostly, encouraging echoes of strangers I've met at events and markets where I've shown my artwork.  My ambitions to write during National Novel Writing Month and draw during Inktober each year are held up by myself alone until I realize no one else cares or seems to notice my goals (despite them being mentioned), so I let them slip away to deal with the crying, whining many needs of my children and husband, just to have someone ask later, "oh, weren't you doing that?", and then comes the sorrow and pain, knowing that it had been a goal, one I looked forward to, but no one else around me really understood, so it was seen as being something selfish and I end up feeling guilty about it...and yet people still think I am able to accomplish those goals.  It makes me want to scream sometimes!  How does one get anything good done in life without any encouragement and instead with constant guilt trips and interruptions by the ones you love?  But you are still expected to accomplish the thing in the midst of all of that. How do you even find the motivation when you are all alone and everyone else thinks of those goals as frivolous, or something to be forgotten?  I can't magically pull extra hours from the day, and when it's just for myself it's hard to say not to the needs of those around me in order to accomplish anything personal.  

I really need a friend again.  I miss the ones I had badly, and I want to be their friend still, but some of them don't want to be friends, some of them hate me and blamed me in the past for their sorrows, which doesn't make a lot of sense when I try to encourage others, especially when they made the choices they did.  Some of them have their own difficulties they are trying to deal with, which is completely understandable and I wish I could help them, but at the same time that leaves me with no one.  Some of them I spend sincere, deep moments with, but once I'm out of eye sight they forget I ever existed.  They don't realize that friendship and connections mean more to me then that.  I've expressed wanting to get together with many of them, and they say they'd love to.  And then they never reach out again.  I see everyone's posts on social media, all their struggles and happy moments that they choose to share, posts about family and friends and accomplishments.  Plans and hopes and dreams and exciting and tough moments.  I see them often enough, and I hate going onto social media now, because it says I have over 500 friends, but no one reaches out to me for years.  I make a post once in a blue moon and not a single person I would usually call friend makes a comment or a like.  They don't even check to see how I'm doing.  No one. The people that do show encouragement are a few distant family members who I am trying to slowly create more of a bond with.  I don't think they realize how much their comments and encouragement mean to me, because there is literally no one else.  I am so grateful for them!  

So now I'm at a cross roads; either I keep accepting the easy excuses, which are very acceptable for the most part, that everyone else is just too busy to be my friend, that they have their own difficulties and trials they're working through, or that maybe I just need to put forth a bit more effort.  Or the second road; I recognize the pattern in front of me that keeps popping up time and time again, and realize that people are polite but actually don't want to be my friend, or don't want to connect with me, for some reason or other that I don't understand.  That perhaps I'm more easily forgettable than I had thought before, or that I'm some sort of burden or difficult to be friends with. And I'm not saying all that to be depressing, but honestly, sometimes I wonder if there is something about me that makes it difficult for others to be my friend, or maybe its some sort of commitment problem people have, or maybe I'm just not reaching out enough and I have to be annoying to find friends these days.  

I have no idea.  

In the end, honestly, I just miss having friends. I miss having someone to talk with, someone to relate to and that is excited about spending time doing some of the same things as me.  I don't like being the person that has to constantly drag my family out to do anything, I want someone else that's excited about things as well to talk with again.  Is that too selfish of me?  There's still a lot of 'I's' in there, but a good friendship goes both ways, so honestly I want to give as well, not just receive.

And if you are one of my old friends reading this, I miss you.  I don't think bitterly about anyone, just that I wish they would talk with me once in a while, share their lives a bit, let me know how they're doing.  I just miss you, no matter who you are.

Also, for family that reads this, I ALWAYS love talking with you guys, it makes me feel loved and not so alone.  So feel free to reach out at any time you feel like chatting, I'm here for all of you and love you guys so much!