Coffee

I have an old friend from college who settled with her family roughly in the same community that we live in. She and I have maintained our friendship to some extent since the 1980’s. I wouldn’t say that we are close friends, but we text and we get together every once in a while. Of course, we are Facebook friends as well. 

She seems to have a remarkable capacity to collect and gather people around her, new people, and generate a lot of friendships with women wherever she goes. I don’t know if these are lasting friendships, or mere acquaintanceships, but she’s always highly social, reaching out and collecting other women for coffee and a hike or some such thing.

Since Sarah died, I’ve kind of lost my social “chip,” and have little feeling or ability to socialize with new people. The idea of socializing in groups is frightening, and meeting and interacting with new people who don’t know my story, or don’t know what’s happened to me, causes great anxiety. Either I have to push past my pain and be sparkly and fun, which makes me feel guilty, or I’m remote and quiet, which makes me feel odd and quirky. Either way, it feels like an ordeal.

I do end up spending a lot of time by myself. Yes, I could jump on the coffee date and hike, or whatever else is going on, but it just feels like to much. It feels like Polly would miss me to much, and wonder where I am. And that makes me think that Sarah would miss me too much, and wonder where I am.