When things started to go askew for me last year, it actually took me longer to sort myself out that I let on. Indeed, if it wasn’t for 3 individuals I’d still be curled up in a heap somewhere, probably attempting to be one of those people who had “given up on society”. I rarely give them credit, not because I don’t thank them daily, but because it’s not a time I dwell upon often. At least, publicly.
I mention that now because a few short hours ago I was faced with one of those moments normally found in a Cameron Crowe movie, where something quite profound dawns on you, not through choice, but more of a realisation of something that was always there.
The price for my year (and it’s almost been a year) of globe trotting is that I’m not longer considered part of the life of these people I hold dear. I always knew that things would change, and I knew that not seeing them regularly would change things a little, but I suppose I didn’t factor the rate of change – oh how i wish I’d paid more attention to logarithms in Calculus…
My rainbow of emotions was kick-started by finding out that I’ve not been invited to 2 birthday parties. I mean, even saying it now, it seems daft. The thing is, whether i could have attended or not, I still think of myself as a part of the group and so it does feel strange to not be invited. Coupled with the fact that one party has invited over 40 people and has a theme (with 11 weeks warning) and another is a blow out 25th, for a while there I did somewhat feel like the guy from work you hope no-ones told about your flat-warming. It’s crazy that as a man of almost 30 this sort of faux-rejection can hurt as much as it would a child, more so I suppose because these are people I genuinely care about.
Realistically though, I’m being selfish even indulging myself in those thoughts. I chose to move on, in fact with their help I moved on. I set in motion a change in my life that has me being a different person, and it’s wrong for me to think that things with those people I don’t see with any regularity are going to stay the same.
It’s funny that this is probably the singular issue in my life that I’ve never managed to grasp as an underlying concept. Things change. The cost of having new good things roll into your life is that some good things roll out. I’ve no idea why I find that premise so difficult to grasp, when, it’s oh so simple. I mean, it’s the circle of life for fuck sake. Even Disney can make kids understand it in 3 words, and yet, i’m still shocked by it when it happens.
So I wont be going to these Birthday parties, nor joining in the group emails that clearly i’ve been added to out of ritual. I’ll phone the respective-organisers and tell them of my love for them, and hopefully they wont squirm in embarrassment, nor ask who I am because the name doesn’t ring a bell! I’m also going to take the afternoon to prune my contacts list. Ex girlfriends from years ago, people from school that I didn’t really like anyway, the numbers of girls I’ve met on nights out or even those who were once in the “break in case of emergency” category. It’s not a knee jerk reaction, and in this day and age of having 1000s of friends on myfacebebook or whatever I think I’ll find it quite therapeutic to go straight to Kev in my phone book without passing 4 Kelly’s and 1 Kelli with an ” i “. It’s time to embrace the change.
EDIT: I feel so much better for doing that; but kiddo, I would have looked GREAT as a pirate!
