I don’t know what’s wrong with me
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m not satisfied with anything these days. It’s starting to frustrate me. Things are good, but I feel like everything in my life is in shades of grey. It’s good, but it’s bland.
I’m lonely. However, it’s a very specific kind of lonely. You see, I have good friends; friends I care about and who care about me. We go out – not every weekend, but when it rains it pours, and I have plans for Thursday, Friday and Saturday this weekend. Socially, life is good.
But I’m still lonely. I feel like I don’t have any superclose friends any more. I feel like no one really knows me. Mostly that’s my fault. In the last year or so, I’ve just stopped having emotions, or at least that’s how it feels. Nothing super bad, nothing super good. I make plans with people on a regular basis, but I hardly ever call anyone anymore. When I do hang out and talk with friends, I don’t really share.
“How are things?”
“Fine.”
“And things with M?l?”
“Good”
“Work?”
“Same old, same old.”
I mean, it’s all true – all those things are fine and good and the same. I’m boring even to myself. When did life suddenly become so barren? I miss being 19, when I could sit and talk with people about socio-political topics for hours, when there were several people I called multiple times a day and who called me multiple times a day and there was always something to say. I miss being able to assume that I would have someone to hang out with and do something with all weekend, and not having to make the plans a week in advance. I miss having someone who will walk to Chapters with me in the middle of the ice storm, or people who will understand when I ask them to go for coffee “at the regular spot”.
I’m lonely.
A few of those people are still in my life, and I would never doubt for an instant that they care about me greatly, as I care about them. But life marches on and we all change. They’ve changed, I certainly have. We’ve grown older and busier and slightly more isolated in our domestic nests – and sometimes I love it – my life is exactly where I imagined it would be – but sometimes I hate it because I have a penchant to cling to the past, colouring over the nasty bits with faux-goodness and building the past its pedestal. I’m aware of this aspect of my personality. But it doesn’t change the fact that I want a best friend at a time in life when no one really has them any more. Combine that with the fact that it feels like my friends are leaving town in droves – well, I’m at a loss. I feel bored and detached from everything, so no wonder I’m lonely. But I don’t know how to change it.