Saturday, March 08, 2008

TGIF

I am so glad it's the weekend. I've crammed two weeks worth of work into this past week and I'm exhausted. Yesterday and today were really busy ones. I had volunteers all afternoon, and while they got a lot done and the newsletter is on its way, it was a tiring day. I had to keep going to my van to haul in things and it was frigid. It's 11 at the moment and it was freezing cold today - the temperature was low and then the wind made it horrible.

Thankfully my lungs are much improved, but it would only take a few minutes in the cold wind for it to feel like I couldn't get a deep breath. I would come in and breathe warm air and then go out for another load of stuff. But, at least I got everything that goes to the office hauled in and upstairs, so that's good. I also managed to haul home a broken chair and put it out with the garbage. I'll bet someone takes it. I don't know why people steal my trash. I think I've mentioned about six dozen times that it freaks me out for people to take my trash. But, I bet someone takes it. Why anyone would want a broken chair I don't know. Of course, I don't know why people want any of my trash.

Tonight I had a lovely, lovely start to the weekend. Martha invited me to join her for "I Love a Piano" at the Fox. There's a Salina native in the cast, so it was quite exciting with many people from Salina attending to see her. Salina is about an hour's drive from here, so it's nice lots of people were able to come. Martha took me to dinner beforehand, and it was so nice to spend some time with her. She's one of the people I don't see nearly often enough.

Among the many things we talked about was the blog. I have been thinking about the blog a lot lately. I often feel out of touch with people and I think that's partially because of the blog - people read the blog and then don't feel a need to actually interact with me in real life because they feel like they already know what's going on with me. As a result I sometimes feel really cut off, and long for real life connection.

This is something I've been wrestling with for some time. I just don't have a solution yet. The obvious one is to stop blogging. But, as hard as it is for me to believe sometimes, lots of people read the blog every day and I'm incredibly flattered by that. Who wouldn't be? And it is a fabulous way to keep in touch with people on some level. It's sort of like my own mega-facebook page. I just want everyone else to have one, too, and unfortunately, few people in my real life have an online presence.

I have to also confess that the blog gives me an "excuse" at times to not make real life connection with people on the periphery of my life. I was recently in a town where someone I used to work with now lives. Another former coworker asked if I looked this person up. It did cross my mind when I was there, but I just decided I wasn't going to bother. I sent Christmas cards the first two years after they moved and I never heard back from them. I just decided to let that relationship go. It obviously wasn't much of a relationship anyway - like most work "relationships" - we weren't anything more than coworkers and any indication otherwise was just folly.

I never understand why people bother to pretend that a relationship is anything more than it is. We're coworkers - we're pleasant - and that's it. When one of us leaves this workplace we won't be anymore. That's cool. Why pretend that it's a real friendship? Why should either of us invest any energy in something that's just what I call a "psuedo relationship" - those are "friendships" that would never exist outside of whatever has brought you together - work, church, boy scouts, committees, whatever. But when you insist on pretending it's more, and not bothering to clue me in, we just both end up wasting time.

Anyway... I've digressed... imagine that... When I was asked if I looked them up I said,  "no. I'm easy to find. If you google my name, the first twenty plus pages have a reference to me. If anyone wants to be in my life, it's pretty simple. They obviously have no desire to be in my life so why waste my time looking them up."

That may seem a little cold, but from my perspective, it's just being logical. It's a waste of time to look up people who have already made it clear they have no interest in being in your life beyond the superficial. What could we possibly have to say to each other that we haven't already said? My time was much, much better spent chatting with Jared and Brian who were spending their spring break traveling Route 66 with friends. We had a lively conversation, filled with new insights and laughter. That was a wonderful use of time and energy.

Obviously, all of this is on my mind. But, I'll think about it more at some later date. This weekend my plan is to be me. To relax. To not have much of a schedule. To try and cram two weekends worth into one weekend. Why does that never work?



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree with you, our time here is too precious to waste. I discovered to my great sorrow some time ago that a lot of the relationships that I entertained were not what I thought them to be. Painful as it was I let them drop off. Not one of the people concerned ever attempted to get back in touch. Lesson learned, when the little voice in your heart says "this person is not auhentic", listen to it.
I have been a lurker on your blog for some time now and thouroughly enjoy it.
We are gearing up for another major snow storm here today, what a winter this has been.Phew!
I send you fond greetings from French Canada, on this International Women's Day, may you blog on for all of us who enjoy your writings.Thank you.


Kirin

Patsy Terrell said...

Thank you so much, Kirin... It's lovely to hear from you. Friendships are a tricky business it seems. I, too, have experienced that - where no one bothers to follow up with me when I stop exerting the effort. It's hurtful - no question about it. Thanks for writing and reading along!