I would like to begin this week�s entry (isn�t it a shame that I�m saying �this week�s entry? I used to update every day) by letting everyone know that it is a momentous occasion. For the first time since I wrote it, Seeing Stars has been succeeded as my Most Popular Entry. As of this writing, its place at the top fo the �most visited page� list has been assumed by Patty Meltdown, my conflicted manifesto on that hyperkinetic culinary dilettante, Rachael Ray. It seems only appropriate somehow, since I have sort of decided that I really enjoy that type of entry, and I�m very content with the change. My top ten list changes only periodically, so it�s nice to see some rotation among the ranks. Speaking of, I have rearranged the drop-down menu to reflect the actual standings of each entry, because I am Anal-Retentive.
So, once again, instead of writing about a certain amount of mental turmoil I�ve been experiencing for a few solid weeks now, I�m going to follow the example set by my WASPy forebears and ignore it completely! Ahhh...ulcer: it�s what�s for dinner. Anyway, I will instead share a tale of events that once reshaped my life, the tenacious and spindled fingers of which still tap me on the shoulder to this day.
The backstory: Shortly after I graduated from college (like, within two months), I came to discover that group of people I called my closest friends...didn�t call me the same in return. In fact, they didn�t call me at all after I graduated (these friends to whom I refer were a year behind me), which ushered me into an emotionally disrupting downward spiral. It was very difficult for me to come to grips with the inexplicable loss of friendships I�d treasured so much, and it wasn�t as if I�d done something to alienate my social circle --to me, it simply felt as though the people I�d made an integral part of my life no longer had the time, nor the inclination to make time, for me. Looking back, it was easier to see that I had somehow misjudged my standing and value, in their eyes, as a cohort and confidante. I�d seen myself as a contemporary; they had seen me as adjunct to their �actual� group, a team sidekick.
It was tough to move on for a while. I made a series of �last-ditch efforts� to reconnect, but I was like a camp follower, showing up to be greeted but not welcomed, enjoyed but no longer included, or in the most stinging instance, disregarded and left behind. I eventually decided that I�d had enough of publicly flogging my dignity, and retreated into the anonymity that was my only recourse. I carried a sense of betrayal around with me like a suit of armor for a long time after that. The person I felt betrayed by, of course, was myself -- by my friends, I felt marginalized and discounted, like my contributions to the nexus of our communal relationship in the quest to help each other enjoy life a little more were deemed inessential, trivial, and my worst fear, forgettable. By myself, I felt completely let down. How had I been so blind as to miss what signs clearly had to have been there? How had I been so arrogant as to overestimate my importance in the friend continuum? How had I sabotaged my own social life so profoundly?
Chief among my lost comrades was a guy we shall call Joe, the one I was closest to, and whose sudden sea change stung the most. He moved to Los Angeles a year before I did, and upon finding out I was coming too, he sent me a belated �get in touch� email. I opted not to get in touch. Of course, on my second weekend in LA -- Friday the 13th, no less, after a hellish day briefly mentioned here -- I walked into a store on the Promenade and almost stumbled right into him. He didn�t see me, and I made my exit posthaste, but it still felt like fate biting its thumb at me.
He subsequently moved out of LA, I learned, and I strangely felt a little exonerated by that. Knowing I was living far from all members of my former cabal imbued me with the ability to transcend my hurt and claim this land in my name, to feel better about my place in life.
Flash forward to: I learned just today (through my ingenius and unhealthily obsessive fraudster efforts) that Joe has recently moved back to LA, and not only this, he has a �blog as well. I won�t link to it, because I don�t really want him to find this journal, and thusly me, but I read through it today with a perverse and haunted feeling, like I was Ebenezer Scrooge watching happy lives play out through a window I couldn�t breach.
I�m very happy with my life the way it is. I�ve more than managed to get over that period of my life, which was dark and unhappy, but I have to confess that it felt like my world got a little bit smaller in that moment.
Someone Got Here By Searching For: vagina meth clouds I�m Watching: Season 2 of Ellen, and don�t you look at me like that, because it�s hilarious. I�m Reading: Ten Big Ones, by Janet Evanovich. Did I already mention that? Eh. Whatev.