thinking [friends?] thursday

Do people have friends?
Real friends?
Actual people in real life?
People they count on and confide in?
Do people have friends that share news with them? Friends that tell you things so you don’t find out by murky facebook posts?
People that check in and check up on you?
The kind of friend that you can tell about your daughter’s new job?
Or more than that…
Do y’all have real friends in this lifestyle?
Bdsm friends?
Meet for coffee and discuss your newest spanking invention kind of friend?
Or less than that…
A compatible soul, steadfast and true?
Just the kind of friend you tell you’re having a rough time and they ask for more information?
Do people have friends these days?
Seems like a wistful exaggeration to me.

I have Sir (who is also my Husband of 22 years) but that’s it.
People I thought were real friends turned out to be something less.
Something a little false, a little conditional, a little… Guarded.
It’s fine.
I mostly don’t miss all of that, but on occasion…
I think it might be nice to have a real friend to talk to, drink coffee with, commiserate and have candid conversation with.
Maybe?
But I’m not sure it exists!
Do people really have friends?

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Happy almost weekend! Enjoy your friends, if you’ve got ’em! Please wear a mask though. 😉

-shygirl

very little

I never asked for much,
Only everything.
All or nothing.
In or out.
Pedal to the metal or full stop.
Still I ask for everything,
One way or the other.

~ shygirl

thinking [with age] thursday

I thought by now I wouldn’t feel so ugly. I thought by my early 40s I would have a little more confidence and a few less tears. I thought my anxiety would dissolve and I would sink into some lovely state of being. I thought by this time I would be comfortable in my own skin. I thought I wouldn’t feel like an outsider everywhere I go. I thought I would have my shit together. Or if I didn’t, I thought I could at least make it LOOK like I had my shit together.

I was so wrong about all of that.

At best, each day when I look I the mirror I feel passable. Mostly though, my face is the same face I’ve never loved, but with added wrinkles. Sometimes, I have a little confidence but it is always short-lived and the tears? I cry more now than in all my previous years combined. My anxiety not only didn’t dissolve, it has consumed more of me and I have sunk into some sort of state of being, but it is not lovely – it’s just worry on top of worry, counting down time. I have these fleeting moments in space where I am comfortable in my skin, though reality kicks me down before I have time to enjoy it. I don’t feel like an outsider, I AM an outsider, in most aspects of my life. I rarely have my shit together and I am far too tired to pretend like I do .

It is just weird. I thought by 42 I would be firmly settled into ME and the reality is I am still just the same as I ever was. I have a little more patience than I used to, I’m a little less angry, I have a lot more love (both given and received). I have a lot of good and wonderful things in my life and I am oh-so-thankful.

But deep down, in my heart and soul, I am still the same girl…

the girl that is never quite enough.

-shygirl