FRIENDS COME AND GO

I have never been much of an out going person.  Before the depression and anxiety hit, I was what they call an introvert.  Personally, I think being an introvert made the depression easier to attack me and take hold in my life.

When you are an introvert, friends are hard to come by and even harder to hold on to.  I have had friends as I grew up in life, mostly through school or from the neighborhood.  When I was in elementary school, they seemed to keep a group of kids in the same class all the way through sixth grade.  I came to know these kids that went through school with me and am still in contact with a few of them.  Doug lived down the street from me the whole time I was growing up.  We were pretty close.  I made a few friends during high school, but none that I would say were very close.  Well, there was Larry and Ronnie.

Something happens after high school though.  We all go our own different directions and we lose track of people.  I already had started on my career in engineering before I graduated and so I had a job that I went to putting off college for awhile.  When I first graduated high school I didn't think I really needed college.  Instead I got married the fall after I graduated and began my career.  It was only when I matured that I saw that I needed to go to college and I did.  I went nights and weekends spending a lot of my spare time studying.  While I was studying I lost track of people and they moved on while I stayed.

The only friends you can't get rid of, or lose track of it seems is family, and that is kind of a forced friendship.  I don't think much of my family, immediate or extended really know me that well, or who I really am.  They try I think to know me but I guard myself against anybody knowing me, even family.

So the few close friends I have had have moved on.  Moved to other parts of the country.  Ronnie is in Houston now and we only communicate through an occasional email.  I don't hear from Larry at all.

I had one close friend at the office and we were friends for a long time.  I have lost track of him now.  He moved to Jackson Mississippi and then retired a few months ago.  Since his retirement, I haven't heard a peep from Dennis.  Close friend?  may be at one time but as of now he is gone and I have no way to get a hold of him.

I think I push these friends that have entered and left my life away from me.   I am not sure why I do that or even how it happens.  It just does.

So this is what life has come down to.  I have succeeded in putting up huge walls around me and the payoff is that I am supposed to live without a friend.  There is a Paul Simon song that I have posted before but I really relate to.  I feel it describes me SO very well.  It is almost like I have patterned my life after this song.

"I Am A Rock"

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Don't talk of love,
But I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.