Growing Pains

I have a very bad habit of becoming quite the little hermit when things in my life are not going as I had hoped. This results in me not having a lot of contact with the people in my life for long periods of time at different points in my life.

Somewhere along the line it has occurred to me that I am not in charge of keeping in touch. It is a new thing for me actually. I think in any relationship whether it be of the romantic, familial, or friendshipial the door swings both ways. So, I have stopped felling guilty about all the phone calls I haven’t made, and started trying to figure out why I am not making them.

Knowing myself, and what with pushing 40 oh so hard these days, I know a thing or two about people in general too. I think I have learned not to depend on people. So now that I have a moment to breathe for the first time in over a decade I am starting to examine my relationships on all fronts and how fulfilling they are to me. Then, if they are not fulfilling, I have to figure out why and if I want to do anything about it.

I feel like now I have a lot of people in my life that I keep at arm's length. I do not want to stop having them in my life, but my relationship with them has changed. I just do not feel as close to them as I used to feel. For all kinds of reasons.

I don't know if I ever will trust my sisters, but, they ARE my sisters, and I want to know them.

Some of my friendships are very old, and I think we became complacent with each other. We got used to the security of the friendship without maintaining it.
So, then I have all these people in my life who are relatives or friends I have known so long I do not remember not knowing them, but then I have new people I am meeting every day. I feel like I can be myself with new people.

With my "old" people, I feel like who I am and who they think I am are very different so I feel stifled and frustrated when I spend time with them and I am trying to figure out why and what I want to do make things better.