One of Those Days...

DISCLAIMER:  I started this post last night and simply chose to ponder the implications of my post prior to completing it.

You know those days?

The ones where you wake up and already know the day is going to suck?  Like you thought for a moment that the day was gonna be great and then you looked into the mirror in the bathroom and realize that you have a monster pimple right on the edge of your nose or lip and it's so huge it's practically waving at you?  Then you drive to work and in the process you spill coffee, get stuck behind the slowest person on Earth, and hit every single red light?  Then you pull out your packed lunch only to discover that a bad food choice was made and nothing ends up reheating well?  And then you make the supremely stupid decision to challenge the Fates, God, Mother Nature, WHOMEVER... to bring it on because you're too strong to be taken down by silly first-world problems...

 

Fate called my bluff.

A good friend lost his father today.

Yeah, that kind of day.  I've just had one.

The worst part?  I feel like a complete and total jerk.  Like, logically I know I have my life to live but how can I continue debating between whether or not chicken tortilla soup is the right choice for dinner when there are REAL problems, pain, decisions, and situations in the world?

I think I now know how we continue on.  Well, I know how I continue on at least.  You can make your own choices.  We all own a little bit of freedom.

We are all free to live in our own heads.  Spending our quiet time daydreaming of some amazing and magical separate reality.  To worry about yourself does not exclusively mean that you don't worry about others.  It just means that you were listening to the in flight instructions regarding emergencies and know that you are supposed to see to your own well-being before assisting others with theirs.

Hi. I'm Anna and I Have a Problem.

I've always been the girl with one good friend.  The sort of friend who would drop everything and drive 1500 miles in the middle of the night just because I called and said I needed her.  I've never had a lot of real friends.  I mean... I know a lot of people and would totally stop to chat for a minute if we met on a city street, but they're not the sort of friends that call me or throw me a party or hug me when I'm down.  A year ago, just before my birthday, my best girl friend left me.  I've come to grips with the fact that she must not have been a very good friend and I'm probably better without someone in my life that constantly takes and takes without ever giving back.  But it broke my heart.  Not that it's a terrible thing at all, but I feel like I'm missing something with only my husband on my list of real live friends.  He's a sweetheart, but he just doesn't take the place of that great friend.  After all, it's not like I can complain about silly things my husband does when my sounding board IS my husband.

I've been in denial.  I've been filling that missing place in my heart with busy-work.  I was studying anatomy today (and made a kick-butt PowerPoint about the skeletal system) and tried to figure out if there was a physiological reason for how I've been feeling lately.

This picture I took:

It made me realize that I've just been a shell of my former self lately.  I'm all structure with no substance.  I'm terribly, terribly, lonely.  It's gotten to the point that I have begun to devalue myself more than the ever present fat chick inside was ever able to do.  I've even been avoiding online friends.  I feel like I don't want to bother them, bring them down, or assume a level of friendship that perhaps they don't feel like reciprocating. I just don't want to be a bother. I need a friend.  I need someone I can call at midnight if I can't sleep and then argue with over whether any of the chicks on the Real Housewives shows have real boobs, or laugh about some random happening of the day that isn't that funny but is hilarious to us.

I feel terrible because my husband tries so hard and is such a wonderful man who I think would try to find a way to fix any problem if I asked him to.  But I need more.  I'm a social person and I haven't had a heart to heart conversation with another person in a while.  No girl talk.  No spa days for manicures.  No drinks and pie after a chick-flick.  I am so lonely it hurts.  The only conversation I have had today, was with my cats and they were no help at coming up with a game plan for studying for my upcoming exam on Wednesday.  In fact, my limited knowledge of cat-language gave me the impression that Charley thinks I should attempt to learn by osmosis and just sleep on my book, and Lucy just expressed her distaste for science by licking her butt.