Friends

Friends

 

I haven’t known what to write recently. I haven’t really been inspired when my days have been being awake for a few hours in pain and exhaustion with no motivation, then sleep for a few hours, rinse and repeat. Not only do the days blur together, but the day and night time do too. I see the sun, I see my husband. I don’t see the sun, I retreat. Even my friends have helped me tell time by when which friends are awake and which ones are asleep or unavailable. I’m always excited to talk when I have energy and can hold my phone up or when I can physically sit up and speak to my husband.

I do a lot of listening these days. There is no point in speaking when there is nothing new under the sun. That is mostly why I have not written a blog post, between that and lethargy. I did have something important I wanted to talk about though, and it’s probably something you’ve heard about a hundred times, but it takes on a much deeper meaning when you go through something like chronic illness. The people you have around you matter. They don’t just matter… they are your life. Yes, some people might be in your life for a short time or a season, but every person in your support network counts. Are they giving you life and encouragement? Are you doing the same for them? Is it a net positive force in your life, or are they slowly dragging you down, inch by inch?

I am not here to say that every friend is always going to be happy all the time and you should only have happy-go-lucky people in your life. Pain, grief, sorrow are all natural parts of life, and troubles come. It is perfectly normal for grief and pain to have their time. But the question I’ve started asking myself is “has this person grown over time?” Some people are content being who they are without changing, and there is no problem with that. If you don’t want to change, then don’t change. Be who you are. Settle deeper into your groove. Carve your niche into the universe.

I want to be a force of positive change in the universe, which means I want to be moving, small step by small step. Yes there are plenty of days where it is weary, and I might pause, but the general direction is change. Every day each person has a choice: do I want to change in any direction, or do I want to stay the same? Each person has that choice for themselves, and only they can decide for themselves which choice they want to make.

But…

In response to that, the people around them also have a choice to see “do I like the choices this person keeps making day by day? Do I want to be like them?” If I don’t want to be like someone, why be around them? Why choose to spend my limited time around someone who brings me no joy, doesn’t challenge me, and doesn’t help push me in the right direction?

I hope you find who you are looking for.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Drunk Uncle Boundaries

Did That Seriously Come Out of Their Mouth? We all have that friend or family member who we wince when cornered by. They lock eyes, and it seems the conversation never ends. Worse, it seems like they have opposite views as you do, but they don’t care. They just nod their heads until you nod your head and pretend like you’re enjoying the conversation. Then they take that as their cue to continue for half an hour more. If someone tries to save you, there’s a 50/50 chance they will be pulled into the conversation too, depending on how skillful they are it could lean more heavily on the side of damage. I get you. There are fortunately many Facebook reels about this very topic. Just keep researching “narcissist” and eventually Facebook will point you to these very people. Some of them don’t possess empathy. Some of them have no idea what another person could feel or think besides themselves. They are stuck in their own corner of the world. I am no expert in this, but I took classes on bound...
Read more

Autism in My Own Words Part 1

Autism in My Own Words Part 1   I don’t know how we do it. Or how “normal people” do it… they gather, have parties, talk, drink, eat, “mingle,” etc. I find myself talked at while I find a person’s eyebrows or lips moving and try to lipread to help decipher through the noise what they are trying to say. I thought I was the only one contorting my face in a carefully practiced dance of lips, cheeks, and especially eyebrows to make level expert look what everyone else looked like what level easy looked like. I’ve been doing it my whole life, and I’ve been doing it so long that I’ve forgotten I’ve even been doing it. Until I got diagnosed with autism and found others like me. And my mask slipped. Suddenly I was “being autistic” and “not who I was before.” Everything was harder, and my eyebrows took more energy to move, my eyebrows could hardly stay awake, and so many more things took so much more energy. I have hardly been to a social gathering since then. But today I was talking ...
Read more

From A Candle

Let It All Burn To The Ground No, don’t let it all burn to the ground. Then you would be left with nothing but grief and nothing to start from. Change comes slowly and from using what you already have. I had a brilliant idea as I was falling asleep for a blog post, but of course I didn’t write it down or type it up, so poof it went! I needed some time by myself (which isn’t that difficult since I’m alone when my husband goes to work in the mornings as I’m searching for a job). I made it my self-care today to stare into a candle for five minutes and put on some music, hoping that would rejuvenate me. I was also hoping it would inspire me to write a post. I’ve been holding off on what I’ve been learning in Partial until after the New Year, making way this past week for change and hope and New Year stuff, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I felt like Christmas just went awry in my attempts at changing others. And I shouldn’t have been seeking to change others in the first place. So I’m sittin...
Read more