My twenties were a hopping time. Erik and I went out a lot. We went to parties, we went to the bars, we hung out at friends' houses and apartments. We whooped it up. We would drive to the Twin Cities and back in one night because we HAD to be there, to hang out and socialize. It was where to be, where the Cool Kids were.
And then in 2007, he stopped drinking, so we stopped going. No one really missed us.
It was a wake-up call to realize that all that interaction, all those friendships we'd thought we'd nourished with our presence and participation dwindled into nothing, maybe a random internet fragment, but certainly not an effort on their end to come to see US to hang out with US.
I've had a lot of time to get over it in the past three years. And I 99% am, except at times like these, when all these parties are going on and we're not there anymore. I remember those parties, how wild they were, how everyone smiled and didn't fight and it was awesome. We were adults interacting, not kids with something to prove. So when I see the pictures from now, I get twinges. Of what good times we had, the connections we made... And yes, there are some people whom I still miss greatly, whom I still talk with, who are amazing beyond time and space apart and I still adore. But we don't have the same lives or the same drives. We weren't meant to be primaries but rather peripheries.
It used to sting. I used to get so mad and hurt and rejected. For all the effort Erik and I put into going down there, we got just about squat in return. But that may have been partly our faults, too. We tried to fit in a place and world we just didn't. It was fun for a while. It was a LOT of fun for a while, actually. My memories will always be fond. Everyone always made us feel welcome enough, were curious enough, but sometimes things are finite.
And now we have Boo, and we have forged on ahead with our own lives. We have immersed ourselves in being parents, of hunkering down and hanging on. We have become content with what we have instead of searching it out in an almost desperate way. We have grown up, as much as we can for this moment in our lives. And we have amazing friends and have amazing lives. For now, this is where we need and want to be, and it is sweet.
2 comments:
Great post, Trina. This is something I've struggled with off and on for years - our house used to be the center of the action but when we moved, the action didn't follow us. I hear about activities that our once-upon-a-time closest friends are doing and it feels like a slap in the face that they don't even seem to miss us. Maybe it's time to accept that they are MY periphery and not the other way around...but that still leaves me without a center at the moment, and that's hard, too. Hmmm.
I think part of it is that our priorities are way different than they used to be. In Erik's and my case, we decided to stop partying (Erik not drinking anymore entirely) and hunker down to have a family.
But yeah, it stung. It stung badly. Friends who used to live in town near us ended up moving away, as well. So it was a double whammy.
It's been an eye-opener, realizing who is actually a friend and who was just there for the fun times. The trick is to remake your center, on your terms. If that means making your circle the size of your family for the moment, that's what you have to do. Things will come around again when the timing is right.
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