Clarification

Ok, let me clear something up now that I'm sober. While it may appear that I am sitting around, feeling sorry for myself, snacking on earthworms and wine and writing poems about how I am Laura, the Lone Friendless One, that is not true. MmmmK??

I go out. I go to happy hours (probably too many happy hours), I went to ACL last weekend (I owe you guys a recap, as a matter of fact. I can quickly sum it now with fun, loud, hot, dust, beer, tired.) I have a fabulous boyfriend and yes I do have something of a social life. In fact, I spend enough time out of the house that my house is currently a total sty. So there! Wait....

Moving on.....

My social life, at the moment, is completely dependent on Max. On what he is doing with his friends - and yes I will continue to use the phrase "his friends", because I have known most of these wonderful, fabulous people for LESS THAN SIX MONTHS and PRIMARILY THROUGH HIM - call me old-fashioned. I do not know any of his friends well enough to just call them up out of the blue and say "hey, so...wanna grab a slice and a beer?" without him around. Am I a freak? Probably so. Did I ever deny that? Nope. Veeeeeery realistic about that shit. Thing is, I need to go out and earn my own friends. Reason one? I'm 34...I should know how to do this shit. Really, this is just asinine. Honestly. Reason two? I should have somebody other than my boyfriend or my daughter to do stuff with. If you're happy with just that, great! More power to you! I'm not! I'd like a girl buddy! A shopping buddy, somebody! Of my own. MINE MINE MINE (hee) Why of my own??

When I got divorced, I lost my entire social circle. I got married at nineteen, and with one notable exception (BFF) all of my friends were the Ex's friends from high school. All perfectly lovely, wonderful people. Fabulous, loyal, helpful to a fault. Great folks - lovely people, really. But...as I said - they were the Ex's friends from high school. So...when the divorce happened, *whoosh*, they were gone. Was it because they weren't comfortable contacting me, or because I wasn't comfortable contacting them?? Eh - little bit of both, honestly. Either way you work it, I had lost the only society I had. Gone.

So now, we have Max and his wonderful, loyal, helpful to a fault friends who he defends jealously and who he tells me "baby, if anything ever happens, they would call me the asshole and rush to your side." Um...no. I have been to that circus, honey - it doesn't work that way. See, for a long time, the Ex told me that the only reason why his friends came around was because of me and nobody really liked him and if it weren't for me, we wouldn't get invited anywhere and and and. I trust Max implicitly and I believe he believes his words, but....I don't really believe that I have the power to change 20 year-old friendships. And really - I don't want that kind of power. I don't think I'd trust the kind of person that would give up a 20 year friendship.

I'm coming to realize that there are things in this world that I need in order to be whole and healthy. One of them is a relationship or two outside of my romantic one. It has taken me 34 years to get to this point. This is a ridiculously long time for someone to make this realization, and it's going to take me a ridiculous amount of angst to make it happen because somewhere in my brain lives this obnoxious person who tells me constantly that I am not good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, skinny enough, cool enough, whatever enough to be friends with....anybody. I'm tired of listening to this voice and I'm tired of beating myself up over here, folks.

So - I either join a damn reading group and take some damn knitting classes and meet some folks, or I run off and live in a cave. And all my shit won't fit in a cave, so.....I guess I'm stuck. If you live in Austin....wanna go get a cup of coffee??