So, i took the day off from blogging yesterday to do nothing. Sure, i went to work and all that, but otherwise it was wholly uneventful. I wound up sitting on my ass watching NBC reruns and eating salsa all night. Very productive.
It’s just that after spending so much time busy with friends nearly every day, a night to myself becomes entirely meaningless, even though it’s what i thought i really wanted. Sometimes i start losing touch with my “identity” when i’m flitting from person to person and from place to place, but then i get back here and realize that i haven’t got the slightest clue at what was missing. So, maybe i’m just possessive of my free time and want to make sure that i totally waste some of it on my own, or maybe i really do need time along here and there to recenter. Who knows…. anyhow, it’s off to work with me.
introversion
I literally ran into Laurel in the middle of the street the other day, and we talked for a while (after removing ourselves from the traffic flow). I don’t know about what. She said that i’ve come out of my shell (i made sure to clarify that “shell” didn’t have anything to do with “closet,” and she assured me that everyone was quite sure i was still inside of that), and while i first i was a little offended (Did she mean to imply i was some sort of corner-lurking little dweeb? I mean… moreso than i actually am?) as the conversation ebbed and flowed i saw that i really didn’t seem like the same person i was a few months ago. One of my other theatre friends recently commented that she couldn’t have lived with “the me from last year,” but she could definitely live with me now.
I feel like i should spend time staring in the mirror after comments like these to try to see what’s different, but i think that’s something the old-me would do. Maybe the new me isn’t such an obvious narcissist…
Tee-hee! Looks like Tom is getting ensnared in the life of another real person. I’ve got to say that i’m rather happy for him, as it’s always cute to read as bloggers slowly fall into like (or love, or whatever) with someone (and i can’t say it’s awful reading about fleeting liplocks and exchanged numbers… it makes me feel like i get out more than i actually do. Which i don’t. Which is funny, because i can really be a voyeur within the walls of my own apartment without employing my clumsy pair of binoculars. But, i digress…). Of course, it’s never fun to read about them falling out. So, erm… Tom, please just get married after your first few dates so you don’t subject us to any misery later on down the line – though i have to say that this nervous business about calling him is downright adorable. And, Tom? Please do try not to drool down your chin… and have fun.
Brant, i know what you mean when you talk about friends and acquaintances and how to tell the difference between them. Sometimes it’s hard to keep a perspective on what’s happening outside of yourself – like the disorientation you feel when you play a first-person shooter game from the camera angle that floats behind your own head. Sometimes you need to remove yourself from what you’ve got stewing inside and view your friendships from the outside, because then you realize how good some of your “acquaintances” really are for you. It’s not their fault that you can’t share all of your private life with them, and you need to accept them on the terms of what they do know and love about you rather than what they don’t. I went through a miserable and lonely couple of months last year when i decided that i didn’t have any real friends, until one of my real friends pointed out to me that it’s not her fault that i won’t share anything personal with her.
Of course, if we would share personal things with our friends, would we need the internet anymore :p
I actually hadn’t figured that out for years and years. I honestly thought that the echos swirling around in my own head and the occasional fleeting contact would be more than enough to sustain me. But i was wrong. I need an audience, a support system, and a friend. Or more than just one. What i do know is that we can transmit feelings through touch. Only two weeks ago i would’ve laughed if you told me that. Have you ever really held someone’s hand? Held it like it was its own separate conversation, where the squeeze of your fingers says more in the middle of a sad story than any hug or sympathetic word or anything else? I say all that i have said with my lips and other things, and sometimes the other things are just as important.