My Bungled Life

There are times when it feels as if I have spent the entirety of my life in one long voiceless cry of “What about me? I need to matter too!” I do not at the moment have the mental faculties to evaluate what that says about me, nor do I have the expertise to analyze it. I believe if I were to seek professional counseling, the best anyone could offer me by way of explanation is that I am broken. Some integral part of my psyche has been shattered and the shards have never collated into a whole again. Taking near lethal doses of Neurontin does nothing to lesson those feelings. I am, in short, an emotional wreck at the moment.

I have what I consider to be quite a conundrum; the reclusive lifestyle I have cultivated, the way I discourage face to face relationships with everyone but Don is just the beginning of it all. I despise the telephone and unfortunately because of that I have lost more than a few friends. It never occurred to me before but I have to say I have always hated the telephone, even as a teenager. The only person I could have talked to for hours on end on the telephone was Don, and that never happened. Going further down the slippery slope, if I really must, I can hold my own in a room with more than three people but again, I must tell you it nearly drives me over the edge. (Remember, all of these are things that Neurontin has nothing to do with.) The bottom line is: anxiety attacks, embarrassment and fear have driven me to create my little corner of the world. I am reaching out and trying. The internet, specifically this Blog has had a huge impact on my self esteem and confidence. A couple of people have been nice enough to correspond with me and I have deliberately kept the correspondence to a minimum because even through this medium I cannot abide the thought of a clingy relationship, and those people have real lives of their own to live. I talked about the anxiety attacks frankly in my early posts here in May, when I met Lee Child. And those occur even if I am only going out for milk.

In an effort to open a door of communication with family members (where I can be in my safe zone) who frequent the internet I opened a new Blog using my name and I sent them all invitations to join my friends list. Only one of them has done that, and she has not e-mailed me or attempted to communicate. That brings me to the point of my conundrum, how in the world do I think I can matter if no one knows I am here? What right do I have to ask what about me?

I am trying to be out there in the open, exposed to the world. The thing is my problems have never included not caring about other people. As I have said here many times, I care deeply about people I have never met and everyone around me. It is a sad thing that in our world today people are more likely to believe I am disingenuous than they are to believe I care. I understand that the healthy thing for me to do is to get out and work on forming a few close relationships. However, I am a coward and unless I meet them here or when Don and I are out traveling or running/walking, I will forever hear that voice calling from deep inside, “I need to matter too.”

And so, it is time to say that I am thankful for the friends I have made here and I am thankful for this life I have been given, even though I have bungled it badly. As for you my friends, travel carefully over this holiday that we can all celebrate.

There is always hope.

Betty