Peripheral Vision

Epiphany: I'm a real hard person to be friends with. God bless the people that have tried but, my God, am I ever difficult to be a chum. Before you say anything, I've noticed that I have burned so many bridges between my time in high school/college and now. And I think that's got me so upset lately. Don't get me wrong, there are some times that I rightfully burned a bridge
because it deserved to be. But I look at my life now and I noticed that I could have had something fruitful with the people that didn't deserve my B.S.

I mean, I'm not as outgoing as I used to be. I give off this tone of "I hate the world so I have to hate you." And even if I do have friends, I get in some panic mode because, my God, I have friends and I don't want to screw anything up to lose them so I keep it really shy, superficial, and on the surface.

I have only a handful of friends that I really am close to, who I can confide in, who I want to share my toothbrush with (ok, bad example). One part of me says "look around at other people, they have address books full of friends that they can just call up and have, say, a barbecue just in an instant." The other part of me says "don't think about what other people got or what you
don't have. You are so blessed to have these people in your life, and you in theirs." I guess this is what happens when you are fitting the mold of a manic-depressive, neurotic, bi-polar, stressed-out, freaked-out...lonely...self-loathing person.

I think one beacon of light in all this is that I look at the people in my friend list and although many of them are just people I happened to meet or current acquaintances, I just think, "Wow, I actually was/is a part of their life at one point or another." That actually makes me happy a little.

matt