On the Departure of a Former Friend and Continued Writing Success

The passage of time is a really weird thing, especially when it comes to other people that are part of your life to varying degrees. The older I become and the more I change with the years, the less connected I feel to the people I used to know on whatever level. I've never been the most social person in my offline life, but I was relatively communicative and friendly online for a long while. Probably why changes in my online social life spark more reflection on this front.

I'm especially confused by a lot of my friendships with other women, both online and off. Most women are socialized to be a lot less direct and straightforward than men, so I'm never quite sure where I stand with a lot of them. There have always been at least a few who seem really conflicted as far as how they feel about me. I'll pick up on definite interest and admiration, but also an undercurrent of something darker. Jealousy or resentment, maybe. Something competitive gone completely sour.

I often feel like such acquaintances are secretly rooting for me to fail, especially if their goals and dreams for themselves intersect with mine at all, as if there's a limited amount of success to go around and they feel I'm getting more than my share. I never know what to do about people that give off that vibe -- that they don't root for me to win or cheer for me when I do. I don't like feeling like people I know are sitting around wishing evil or misfortune into my life, but I also feel like I'm not patient enough with people and cut others off way too quickly. I'm trying to be less like that, especially as I get older, so more often than not, I just let people hang around, but distance myself to stay off of their radar as much as possible.

This morning, I noticed that one of these women apparently unfriended me on Facebook over the weekend. I haven't been posting anything inflammatory lately, nor have I been leaving ambiguous comments on her posts, so I don't think the reason was anything like that. She was in the habit of leaving odd comments on some of my posts that made me feel like she resents a lot of the personal progress I've been making though -- especially when it comes to things like selfies, beauty posts, or workout/health updates. This person had been on the wagon for a while herself with all of that stuff, but she started backsliding badly around the time my own progress was becoming really visible, and I think she resents that.

Not Just Another Bloody Mary

"Sea of Thoughts" -- Lindsay Rapp

Why do I do this -- forget about regularly hashing out my thoughts and recording my life in a format more substantial than a tweet or a Facebook status update? It's my knee-jerk reaction to say I've just gotten too lazy about my personal writing, but there are other times where I'm aware that maybe I just don't "need" journaling to the same extent I used to. I may finally be growing up in a way I once thought I never could or would. A possibility that is both wonderful and sad all at the same time.

Since I last updated this past March, my life has continued along the same path for better or worse. Things are still very much the same with my mother, her health, and her apparent lack of desire to regain her independence. That depresses me deeply, if I'm going to be very honest. So many people would have loved to receive the second chance she got, but will never get it. Meanwhile, she's just wasting hers. Growing fatter, lazier, and more complacent by the day. No effort made to repair anything in her life, including all of her broken relationships.

I'm still working very hard to be different from that. When I was a little girl, I used to look forward to summer vacations just like every other kid. However, I loved spending mine improving myself for some reason. Summers were a time for me to see how many books I could read, draw all the pictures I could, learn new symphonies on the piano, and undertake all sorts of fun little personal writing projects. Lately, I feel like I'm that little girl again, only all of the time, as opposed to just over the summers. I'm voraciously hungry for self-improvement again, and I am loving every second of it. Especially since I can finally tackle all these little challenges I set for myself with the focus of a 40-something. It's a really interesting combination of energies and one that is very new to me.