Random Thoughts

I quit posting the newsletter here when I realized hardly anyone was reading it.  Actually, hardly anyone reads any of my blogs.  OK, I don't "advertise" them ... but most of the ones I read weren't advertised either.
It's irrelevant.

My thoughts are about friendship.  I persist in thinking I don't have many; but maybe the problem is my definition.  I always thought that friends were people who LIKE you, whho enjoy spending time with you, who care about you and what's going on in your life.  There are many people that I consider friends because that is the way I feel about them.  But maybe I'm wrong.  Because by that definition, I don't have many. I do have people who seem to like me ... but the vast majority of them are people I've met online, who don't really *know* me.  And if I post (on FB) a cute picture or something, a lot of people "like".  But if I'm struggling with something, I get "hugs" ... and also criticism from people who live in other states and have no clue what I'm up against.
Anyway, those aren't the people that concern me.  And I'm not really talking about family, although it's a deep sadness in me that I have so little contact (laterally).   I no longer get invited to join gatherings - but I couldn't go anyway.  And getting anyone to come here is remarkably difficult.  So I have to come to the conclusion that Jimmy and I are horrible boring people that no one wants to be around.

And then, there are the "users".  People who only like me when I have something to give them, usually money.  When I can no longer afford to hand out money, for whatever reason, suddenly these people have little time for me.  They don't come visit.  They don't call to say how are you (if they do call, it's to complain about something in THEIR life ... I've always been a good listener, but that's still a form of being used).  They don't bother to email or tet unless they want something from me.

People *think* they understand my lonliness and frustration.  They don't even come close.  

And then there's the "friend" who constantly criticises me.  OK, I admit I'm not real good with criticism.  I guess it's because I've lived with it all my life; and honestly, I'm pretty sick of being told what's wrong with me, or how wrong I am about something.  Any discussion I get into with this person turns into a borderline argument.  She just knows *everything* (she even had the nerve to tell me exactly what is wrong with a relative and what to do about it ... contrary to the doctors this person has been to!  And she doesn't even know the person!)  

There is a friend who claims most of all to understand my feelings, because she's been there.  Sort of.  And yet ... I can go days, even a week at a time, without hearing a word.  And when I do hear, or she gets here, it's because she needed to "get away" from her house. There's apparently no regard for what I might need (as in, just to hear something sometimes?)

The one person who seems to understand and care lives too far away to do much about it .. and yet they make more effort than people who live minutes away and "claim" to "be there if we need anything".  I'm sorry, but showing up once a week for a free meal with a bunch of disrespectful brats in tow is not what I consider "helpful".  Ture, there are those who listen to me complain and whine .... but only because they're a "captive audience" at the time.

I get it.  No one wants to hear me complain.  This is my life, deal with it.  I get that.  What I don't "get" is the apparent attitude that "your life sucks, so deal with it, we're busy having fun and can't be bothered".  If I didn't feel so isolatedd, so lonely, so deserted ... maybe I wouldn't complain.  

There are people who tell me how "strong" I am.  Well, NO, I'm not.  I do what I have to do.  Everyone does.  If you have no choice, then you do it.  Strong - to me - is when you have a choice, and choose to do what no one else will do.

When I started out writing I thought I had my thoughts "organized".  But I just can't seem to put the right words together to express what I'm feeling.

Maybe it doesn't matter anyway.