I miss my "Drop In" friends... you know the ones that would show up unannounced while you were still bra-less in your jammies watching TV and they would take their shoes off, pour themselves a cup of coffee (or make a fresh pot because they knew where you kept the coffee filters and all that) and just BE there with you.
I miss the friends whose homes were my home too where I knew which way they folded their towels and which drawer the wooden spoons were in.
I miss the kinds of relationships where there was no need to make plans or host each other, you just spent time in each other's homes and became part of each others' lives.
I miss feeling connected like I did in very small pieces of time along the way.
People who never leave "home" and still see their grade school friends at the grocery story don't realize just how special that is.
People who live near their blood families and eat meals together, celebrate birthdays together and have those "drop in" relationships seldom realize just how precious all of those "little things" are in life.
I envy those people in moments like this.
My blood family was very small and not connected at all. We ate at the dining room table exactly 3 times a year: Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I left "home" the week I turned 16 and have spent most of my adult life trying to make my own families along the way.
My 1st and 2nd husbands had large families with kitchen table, coffee pot forged bonds, despite their dramatic dysfunctions. I felt at home in those places but only for a week here, a day there.
In Germany I had 2 neighbors with whom there were those open-door, coffee and cards, TV watching bonds. But like everything during war, those bonds would be bent, cracked and eventually shattered beyond repair. Now those bonds are remembered only be the scars they left behind.
And even after all of that I tried again in Texas with another family. She was an only child seeking to grow that same sense of home I was also lacking. And like the previous 2 women that I had that bond with, she would leave the biggest scar of them all.
Moving here with My Mr. and then working from home for the first year meant that we have had to actively try to make friends. None of those relationships are "built-in" for us in the way that others often have. Those we have found are all separated by physical distance and the "grown-up" sense that socializing is a planned event rather than a "drop in" kind of relationship.
BF1 has been the only exception to a degree. He has come over, taken his shoes off and curled up on the couch with us, just BEING here. I've cooked while he offered to help with the dishes. He has slept on the couch and seen me naked-faced and pre-coffeed and still kissed me good morning. But there is physical distance and all of the life stuff so his visits are a rare treat.
This weekend has been full of growing pains (along with the physical pain I'm still in after losing a fight with gravity and dislocating my tail bone). My Mr. has been volunteering down in DC at a Con while I've been home alone with little or nothing to occupy myself. This is the longest we've voluntarily spent apart since we got together.
It is good to have separate interests. It is healthy to have outside friends. We both know that the degree of attachment we have to each other is pushing the boundaries of co-dependency and that we need to work on it. But right now I'm feeling the power of the loneliness and realizing just how deep it goes.
I never felt "connected" or "at home" in the way that most people do. There is a scene in the movie "Garden State" where Zach Braff and Natalie Portman talk about the idea of home, "Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place." That scene makes me cry every time because I don't have a group of people or an imaginary place of my own to try and model "home" after. That is so fucking depressing.
Don't get me wrong, My Mr. and My Kiddo are my family and this is our home. There is just something missing when everything is under one roof... Community. That's what I'm missing. Feeling like my home is bigger than these 4 walls and that my family extends beyond blood and marriage is something I've only had small tastes of in my lifetime and they have always left me with little more than indigestion.
My kitchen table used to be home to others as well. My Kiddo had friends that called me "Mom," slept on our floor and helped with the dishes. One of them just got her first job as a roller skating car hop. Another one of them, my Frog, is in labor right now. She is 17 and about to become a mother. She still messages me on Facebook from time to time, calling me "Momma" and touching base with me. I'm so heartbroken for her and for the struggles she's facing after all of the loss she has already suffered. But that's another story.
I am lonely for friends. I miss my Alabama Firecracker and her coffee. If she was here now, she would color my hair for me and talk about her soap operas as though they were real people she cared about as much as we cared about each other.
I don't know how to get past this feeling and connect again. The truth is that any bonds we make now will very likely have to shift again in a year or two. My Mr. is still active duty and we are only slated to be here another 16 months. We might get an extra year, but we know that this is not going to be our "home" and that makes it all the harder to deal with.
And then there are the weird dynamics like what I have with McT. We went to his birthday show last night and I was miserable. The show was great, and banana bread beer is AMAZING.. but I was uncomfortable and just felt out of place. McT and I have these heavy, deep talks but then never hang out in real life. At the shows he is "on" and has a large community of performers and other local artists that just feel like "the cool kids" at the shows sometimes. My Mr. and I sat alone while large groups around us chatted, drank and greeted others warmly with big hugs. A couple performers I'd seen were there in their "regular faces" which was a little more weird to me than it should have been. It's like I got to see behind the sequined curtain but never actually put on pasties myself. And dammit.. I want to wear pasties and be as interesting as the "cool kids" all look.
So here it is Easter Sunday and I'm at home in my marshmallow suit while My Mr. is doing something he loves: line control at a Con filled with costumed Awesomeness. My Kiddo is off work and agreed to clean and make pancakes and bacon if I pay for the bacon and applesauce so she can make brunch like I used to do for her. Back to the pillow fort since my tail bone is screaming at me again.
Happy Jesus Zombie Day!
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