I'm a T-Rex

(original post date: March 10th, 2011)

Today started off in a strange mood. I ran to work because I’d missed the bus when I waited for my breakfast to heat up… it was a 13-hr shift, no less, and I had every intention to be mentally prepared. But I was late and it took me a while to pull myself in to the right head space.

Nothing felt “right”. I was agitated, restless in the heart, and just wasn’t in it. I spent the whole day wondering what was wrong. I worked with admirable people, hung out briefly with friends during my meal breaks, and cherished the moments with the people I love… seems like a perfectly enjoyable day to me. Then it clicked: friendships. That’s what’s fucking me up!

Ever since that incident last winter I haven’t been able to get over the “friendship” thing. Granted, everyonechoses their friends – intentional or not. We all have certain people that we “click” with, and others who we wish were our friends but are “too good for us” or “out of our reach” (…which is ironically much like crushes). Then there’s also a difference in the weight each person places on the friendship. How much I value you doesn’t guarantee that you value me as much as I do, therefore resulting in disappointment or even hurtfulness (again, much like romantic love).

I have been known (or maybe I just think it’s out there) to take my friendships too seriously. I love my friends. I treat them all real nicely – perhaps too generously, and I sometimes re-prioritize my to-do’s so that friends-related events float to the top. And sometimes (all too automatically), I expect them to do the same sacrifices… which is unreasonable to ask, I may realize afterwards, only after sadness caused by disappointment. And then I find myself in this continuous cycle of fresh friendships. It’s like I’m having multiple short flings that come in waves. Once they pass they’re tossed away and I welcome new ones.

There are few friendships in my life that I’d call long-lasting. Most of those I used to know in school have lost contact (pffft, facebook doesn’t count), and lots of people I worked with are now “colleagues” or mere acquaintances, not friends. (Yes there is a difference.) So when there are so few that I can keep going back to and that they’re busy when I need them, I find myself searching for fresh new ones to talk to. Not that it’s a bad thing, but somehow this seems to happen a lot. Old, close friends would be too busy for me, so these new friends who haven’t gotten tired of me are willing to hang out, discover who each others are and explore the world together as new friends. (I mean, everyone can use a beer buddy or two, right?)

Which brings me to my real point of reflection: I seem to butcher my friendships. I don’t know if I am doing this purposely, but somehow and for some strange reason I can secretly sabotage what I’ve started to build with my new friend… thus causing total destruction of said friendship. Well, I may not have concrete evidence on which to base my theory, but I’d like to take girl-crush A and her friends into consideration… then again, that might have been a totally different situation, being my girl-crush and her friends being my girl-crush’s friends…

Or, I am just bad at picking who I want to stick with. Those I want to hang out with are SO DIFFICULT to get in touch. It’s like they dropped off the face of the earth. And as much as I want to give up trying, I just keep at it because it’s the only trace of friendship I have left of them. Then the ones I do get in touch with are sick of my constant nagging, stories and the struggles I face. I am starting to wonder if I was built for long-lasting friendships, like how I started to wonder if I really couldn’t do ONS instead of saying and believing I can’t. I mean, how will you know unless it happened? I have yet to find someone with whom I can simply sit in silence AND enjoy that silence.

Now, back to my strange day of reflection: Even though I have a lot of friends at school, I feel as if I don’t have someone that really truly cared about me and the things I do (it’s understandable though, everyone’s engulfed in their own schoolwork). So when I got to school today, I knew that I will see familiar faces, but my heart will still be restless. I am longing for that feeling when I walk into a room where there are friends (who has mind-reading powers), will know what’s been happening in my life without saying or asking anything, nor do they pass judgment. And then they will sit in silent comfortable company with me. I can, therefore, be truly happy.