With great life changes come the ability to see with much
more clarity than you have when mired down in the slogs of your established day
to day life. Trends that you couldn’t
shake because you were already tied into a routine are gone. The fresh start allows you to reset and be
the person that you weren’t able to before.
And I’m not advocating running away when things get tough, I’m talking
about even after you have done all you can, and still find yourself pushed into
a role that you cannot escape, or at least can’t escape without major damage to
your social structure.
With the new simple life comes one such fresh start. That I
am not disposable.
Towards the end of my old life this trend escalated into a
teetering tower of obviousness that not even –I- could not ignore. I had put myself in a position where I was
seen as disposable by many of my friends.
At some point along the way I had entrusted my time and heart with
people who, apparently, saw things as a one way street.
The thing with these sorts of people is that when you pull
the emergency break, or try and take a turn, or put on your metaphorical hazard
lights, they do not slow their party train to acknowledge you are no longer
aboard. In some cases they even toss their detritus at you to lighten their
load while chugging into the horizon.
It would be easy enough to say that these are callous or bad
people. To push off the blame as being
their problem and that nothing is wrong with you. But that would be a short-sighted erroneous
evaluation of the situation. When you
join a social group there is an unwritten agreement that you move as a
collective most of the time. You know
your importance, or lack thereof, in the pack by who controls its
movements. When the leader slows, the
pack slows. When the omega slows, it gets
eaten. It’s a basic and driving
principle of social interaction, nothing new there. My insight is that somehow I am an alpha
omega. Not to be confused with the “alpha and omega”…talk about a god complex,
but an alpha omega. I enhance the true
alpha's status but in no way control the ship.
This is a great position so long as I’m onboard with the prime directive
of the herd. It is a horrible position
to be in for two reasons.
First, there is a perception of strength that lets people
believe that I will always land on my feet and succeed. A double edged sword because, while that is
usually true, it comes at a great cost that few will acknowledge.
Second, with no true social standing in and of myself, any
life troubles leave me standing alone.
Both of these things have occurred in the last year of my
life. Strong friendships dissolved, for
their own reasons and unwilling to be shared in such a public domain, and when
left standing alone I reset my course and landed on my feet.
This pattern has repeated in my life and instead of blinding
seeking a new social group I find that I am flying solo for a bit and asking the
“why” questions. “Why do I seek these
friendships out? Do I really want to be
in such a dynamic, or is it learned behavior?” This time feels like a sacred moment in my
life, with the literal and metaphorical distance to breathe and grow. In Shakespeare’s word I have heeded the call
to “get thee to a nunn’ry” and figure yo shit out ho. (that last bit is a
modern day translation).
It has been a blissful respite. Recently, I found myself rushing back home to
my sanctuary from a friend’s gathering because I missed my fortress of
solitude. Despite the state highway 100
feet from my door, there is a quiet here that I have been needing. The home is safe and lovely and mine alone to
read and think and write. My job peaceful
and providing all the surface level social interaction my extrovert side
needs. I swap stories with new people
every day, but know that I am not tied to any obligations as a result of that
time together. I do believe I have put
myself in a time out until I learn to care for the right sort of people (for me…that
definition is different for everyone).
That new friendships will be built in baby steps of time and
interactions rather than one sweeping wave of integration. That
I am not disposable, and I will stop putting myself in situations that treat me
as such just because it’s what I’ve always done.
“We
cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
~ Albert Einstein
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