"At the same time, the challenges of being someone with three parents, a partner, and a good friend all in their 60s are becoming ever more prominent and I'm feeling a need to surround myself with others who understand this and can provide support when things get ugly."
No joke. I lay awake at night worrying about this exact situation practically every night. When John was near total blindness for those 2 years and the life just seemed to be draining out of him, the isolation and the loneliness hit me the hardest. Where were all these so-called "friends" who had been there when times were good? A huge part of why I stopped writing here at LJ was because I felt abandoned by what I had once thought was a community of "bears" who actually cared about John and myself.
I've struggled not to make that whole ball of anxiety make me bitter and more of an isolationist, but to be perfectly honest, there have been times when I've just given in to the resentment and the anger and let old connections wither out. Just recently we had a spate of about 8 frantic phonecalls in one day from a one-time "good-good" friend, one who had been part of a long-time couple with whom John and I used to spend most holidays in fact - but one who had ceased speaking to us about 5 years back. As the calls kept coming in that day, John kept wanting me to pick up the phone and try to re-connect. But I just couldn't. I was so angry and still so hurt over the fact that he could just cut us out of his life so thoroughly for so long that I wouldn't let it happen. (And all of this, ironically, after *our* conversation a few months back about exactly this sort of thing).
I don't know how to fix where we've come to over the past few years. The demands of my job keep me too long apart from John on a day-to-day basis, and saps my energy for trying to be "social" on the weekends. But in those late nights, when the worry is at its peak, I know, deep down, that I *have* to reconnect; or else, as you say, things are bound to get truly ugly.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2011-08-10 03:22 pm (UTC)No joke. I lay awake at night worrying about this exact situation practically every night. When John was near total blindness for those 2 years and the life just seemed to be draining out of him, the isolation and the loneliness hit me the hardest. Where were all these so-called "friends" who had been there when times were good? A huge part of why I stopped writing here at LJ was because I felt abandoned by what I had once thought was a community of "bears" who actually cared about John and myself.
I've struggled not to make that whole ball of anxiety make me bitter and more of an isolationist, but to be perfectly honest, there have been times when I've just given in to the resentment and the anger and let old connections wither out. Just recently we had a spate of about 8 frantic phonecalls in one day from a one-time "good-good" friend, one who had been part of a long-time couple with whom John and I used to spend most holidays in fact - but one who had ceased speaking to us about 5 years back. As the calls kept coming in that day, John kept wanting me to pick up the phone and try to re-connect. But I just couldn't. I was so angry and still so hurt over the fact that he could just cut us out of his life so thoroughly for so long that I wouldn't let it happen. (And all of this, ironically, after *our* conversation a few months back about exactly this sort of thing).
I don't know how to fix where we've come to over the past few years. The demands of my job keep me too long apart from John on a day-to-day basis, and saps my energy for trying to be "social" on the weekends. But in those late nights, when the worry is at its peak, I know, deep down, that I *have* to reconnect; or else, as you say, things are bound to get truly ugly.