The one where they all stop talking to each other

[j4]

Answering questions about the strength or otherwise of friendships is always hard, but even more so at the moment when I feel like everybody is at odds with each other in one way or another. And, before anybody reaches for shift-8, all the well-intentioned "*hugs*" in the world aren't a substitute for what's missing.

I feel like the strong friendships that I thought would last for years have all fallen away, and I don't know if I was just being naive in thinking that any friendship would last that long. I worry that it's all my fault that my friendships have drifted away, for reasons that I'm not allowed to talk about.

But I feel like I don't have any spare emotional energy to try to rebuild friendships that have faded; and most of all I don't feel I have anything to bring to a friendship at the moment. I don't do anything, I don't think anything, I can't help anybody, I'm neither useful nor beautiful. I don't see what the point would be of trying to force this parcel of misery on people who have enough problems of their own.

The worst of it is that this doesn't make me despair; it just makes me feel flat and empty. I feel like the colour is leaching out of everything, like everything is tending towards zero. And all I can do is sit and watch the world run down like a wind-up toy that has fallen over, no longer running, just kicking slower and slower until finally, imperceptibly, motion becomes motionlessness.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I was at this point about 3 years ago. I won't say that what happened to me will magically happen to you, that would be fatuous. But you never know what is going to happen tomorrow. Friends reappear, new friends come along, friends that are barely there continue to be good when they are and one just realises that that is the pattern of that particular friendship from now on, and so on. There's no point my persuading you here that you do have plenty of stuff to bring to Friendship; you don't sound like you're in a place to accept that right now (even though I mean it and I'm sure you know it).

Emotional energy is hard to come by. But let it be and it will recharge.