Don't Go Breaking Into Song

So for days now I've been trying to write about my next move across the country; and I finally figured out why I can't seem to post anything:

I'm scared.  I'm really scared. The last time I moved across the country I regretted it. And not like "oh I shouldn't have had that extra cookie" regret, but full on blaming and shaming myself for things that were never within my control; constantly questioning how much happier I would've been if I just hadn't moved. 

And yes; that's why I'm planning to move back to Philly.....but what if I end up regretting that too, looking back at LA as a happier time?   How will I get over losing what I'm leaving behind if Philly isn't everything that I want it to be?

The ending of the movie Sweet Charity has always stuck with me.  (Yes, spoiler alert. Skip this paragraph if you still haven't gotten to watch the movie from 45 years ago.)  In the movie, Charity works as an escort, until she and a customer fall in love. He scoops her up and makes plans to marry her, have her move in with him, and all in all give her a happier life. 

But on the day of the wedding, he leaves her at the alter. Heartbroken, Charity calls her coworkers, with whom she had been living, to tell them she needs to come home. 

But they are too exited for Charity's new life that she can't bare to tell them the news, and through her tears she plays along with the happy fiction, eventually hanging up the phone.  So she is friendless, homeless and completely alone.  That night she sleeps on the bridge that reminds her of the last man to break her heart; once again in pieces after over investing in a better life. 

And I know I'm not Charity.  I don't need a prince to come save me; nor will I ever depend solely on someone else for my survival. But I relate to the happier moments turning to poison as soon as they become memories.  I understand that feeling of calling the friends who want just the best for you and not being able to vocalize that once again - I've failed to find happiness.  I don't even know how to face myself when happens. 

There were moments in this past year where I'd close my eyes, tense my fists and I really would try to go back in time.  I felt responsible for my suffering. 

So what if this move results the same way?

The last time I transferred to a position that wasn't my promoted role, I quit the job. What will I do for work and rent and insurance if that happens again...? Not to mention that I am really committed to this career path.  Is that worth staying in a city where I am sick and miserable?  Or moving but backwards into a role without a chance to show what I have learned?

If you can't notice I tend to catastrophize and plan accordingly for each reality of apocalypse.  I used to panic about subway cars; how would my life have been different if I had gotten into the front car instead of the one just behind it...?  Who would my friends be if I had had calculus for first period and not fourth?  What would my life had been like if....

So I know this nervousness is normal for me.  I'll be happier once the move is done.  I just wish that in the meantime, I wasn't feeling so afraid.

Grief, Guilt and Gratitude

            Few things feel as futile as having friends get mad at you over text message.

And before I continue, I just want to say that this isn’t a passive aggressive post about anyone in particular; it’s just me discussing something I’ve experienced with many people over the last year.

            I don’t know why I’ve lost so many friendships in the last 365 days. 

            It could be that five years on the east gave me a different energy from the west, making us incompatible.  And then it could be that this year on west coast soiled my east coast aura. 

            Perhaps it’s that I’ve made serious judgements about where I am and where I need to be, and perhaps some friends falsely assume that they are the source of the negative realizations.  

            Maybe I’ve changed into someone meaner than I used to be, unintentionally pushing away those that are trying to help.  Or maybe being sick required more of my friends than they wanted to take on.

            Potentially I’m not clear enough in what I need; or potentially I’m too clear in what I expect.

            It may be that I didn’t give back enough to those that I love; or it may be that I love my friends more than they can handle.

            It’s possible that people expected me to be stronger than I’ve been, or it’s possible that my determination could be seen as stubbornness rather than strength.  

            All I know is that I’m an outsider, who’s ready to move again, trying to be low maintenance, certain of what I need from my friends, prepared to love them unconditionally, and trying to regain my strength after a really rough year.

            And somehow something in that has caused me to lose a lot of those that I love.

            And these texting fights are like trying to have a conversation in the middle of a musical number.  The orchestra is set to play on no matter what happens, the rhymes have been decided, the key has already determined the mood, and I have a strict time constraint in which I must blurt out my responses.  I am not in control, the outcome has already been decided; there is a musical theme introduced at the beginning of the conversation that continues until the finale and the final curtain of our friendship.  I wish instead to take my time, like a chess game consider every possible response, with the lowered stakes of trying to figure out which door on the right is a friend’s bathroom.  But that is not the setting.

            And when the music starts, I don’t know how to win.  Arias of sadness and mistreatment are being belted at me; and at that point, how can I interject?  It’s already their number, their objective is decided, and no attempt at harmony can change what they hear as discordant.

            And so I lose another member of my cast, and have to sing on a little bit louder now.

            I don’t blame people for leaving.  I’ve lost enough in my life, and gained enough too, to know that the resentment only drains me in the end.  I know that my life is more complex than most, that my stories can seem to overshadow others’ hardship, and that anyone in my life, no matter how much I love them, can leave indefinitely.  I don’t have a blood family, but I’ve borrowed people’s parents, always knowing that they weren’t fully mine yet loving them fully; and then I’ve gone years without speaking to them.  And to be upset would somehow imply that they did more harm than good.  But I am grateful for the love that has been shown to me, I have never for a moment taken that for granted.  

            Even when I feel alone, that doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped caring for the moments that other’s were there.  It’s like a social appetite.  Even if I had a big breakfast, I can still be hungry for dinner.  And that doesn’t mean that I didn’t appreciate breakfast, nor would’ve been better off without it.  It just means that I need little more.  And since my appetite can be bigger than those that have a consistent family to lean upon, sometimes I might go hungry.

            It’s a solitude that I have embraced.  It was the price of my freedom when I emancipated myself from an abusive relationship six years ago; a decision I haven’t regretted for a single second.

            I’ve made peace with who I am; with my different personality, different outlook on life, different obstacles and different circumstances.

            It’s only when I lose someone that I question who I’ve become.  In the realm of social appetite, it’s like turning allergic to a favorite food.  “What happened?  Was it something I did?  Could it have been avoided?” I ask, and yet once that allergy has been detected, it’s too late and that friend almost never comes back.

            I’m very susceptible to what my friends say about me.  The opinions of people that I don’t like me float away, but when a loved one sees me in such a negatively light?  I no longer believe in who I thought I was.

            I never deliberately try to lose anyone.  So it can feel unfair, that they don’t  understand, like I don’t deserve the words they are firing at me.  But I grew up without being allowed to have opinions.  So I turn to my friends and ask if it really is my fault.  Only then do I trust that there isn’t a fatal flaw within me that poisons every one of my relationships.  And yes, there is a part of me that is terrified at what I would do when that last friend leaves; to whom I would ask “was this really my fault?”

            But this is not my reality.  This when I remind myself of those that still love me.  That though I’ve cried at yet another end-ship aria, my stomach pained with guilt and social starvation, that still there are those that love me.  And yes, maybe their song will one day come, but they love and know me now, and there’s no need to mourn what is still alive.

            So though it hurts to lose those that I’ve loved and I’ll never not miss them being in my life, that doesn’t mean that I have to starve myself from upbeat friendships that I have left.