Alone in Your Head

I cried at my desk at work today.

That's sorta been a thing for me lately. This one, at least, wasn't a big cry. Not the welling, sorrowful kind. The check-your-mascara kind. Just tears, silent and hot. Emotion I couldn't contain anymore finding its way to spill out.

Today was an emotional day. There have been good days. Great days. Bad days. Really bad days. Life on a spectrum of highs and lows.

Since we found out TJ wasn't keeping his job, that's what it's been: A roller coaster. I thought -- really, truly thought -- that we were ready. That it would't even be a blip. I was wrong.

I'm a little disappointed with how hugely I overestimated my own abilities. In the end, this thing touched emotional buttons I had really hoped had been turned off.

Again, I was wrong.


There is a lingering sting, still. There are emotions to face, most informed by our own history and emotional baggage. Feelings of rejection. Of not being good enough. Of feeling used and played by the system, by people we trusted.

It doesn't even really matter that by the end of it, TJ was really pretty sick of this job. We were really hoping that something else would come along and he wouldn't even have to count on the position. So, yes, it's a good thing. It's a good thing for everyone.

It takes a while for the heart to catch up with the head.

Recently, I read an article about friendship "breakups" and how losing a friend can be as emotionally devastating as losing a lover. It said of friendship breakups: "They shake one's emotional foundation and undermine a cherished and tenacious assumption — that there are at least a few people you can always count on, no matter what, that their love transcends any conflict, that you can always talk it over, that you are as indispensable to them as they are to you."

And that's where my baggage sits heavy in my heart. I have experienced too many times the pain of being the person overly-committed to a friendship. Overweight, under-pretty, awkward, shy, too loud, too aggressive -- since childhood I've longed for pure acceptance. That friend who just likes me, who wants to be with me. I have smothered friends; squeezed until the sand slipped through. I was too insecure to hold a friendship loosely. I wanted to be liked by the cool kids; I was a needy puppy eager for anyone to pat my head, even if they kicked me later. No one, it seemed, ever wanted me as much as I wanted them.

I have matured and grown more comfortable with who I am, which has definitely helped me have healthier, reciprocal friendships. And I have many good friends, many great friends. But still mostly just a few really close, best friends. Maybe that's not the best, maybe, as my mother used to warn me when I got chased too hard after a "friend," I need to remember "don't put all your eggs in one basket."

In the article, the writer chose to not re-engage with a friend who she felt abandoned by. She was too hurt and too untrusting to go back to someone she described as being her "soul mate." Her perception of her former friend was too damaged.

I read it and thought, "She made the wrong call."

In the end, I cry at my desk because, due to this situation, I've intentionally distanced myself from a great friend. Someone I want to text to tell that I made a cake, or that my kid had a tick in his hair, or just to go for a walk because I enjoy her company. Because it's comfortable. It makes me feel more alone, and less accepted, and then that it's my fault. My friend still wants to be friends, and the distance is of my own creation.

It's a terrible thing, to be alone inside one's head when you're used to having someone to be in there with you.

It's a terrible thing to miss your friend.