How it goes

I forgot today was a work holiday, but I've still been trying to pull my thoughts enough together to write. Between the break-up and getting sick and my 40th birthday I've been in a very introspective (or self-absorbed) kind of mood. I had thought my endless misanthropy towards the end of the relationship was simply the result of persevering in an arrangement that was no longer working for either of us, but it's become clear since the break-up that that wasn't entirely the case. I just genuinely no longer have a sense of who I am, or where I belong or what my purpose might be and I have retreated a bit to try and figure that out.

So to anyone who has been trying to reach out to me and received a lot of nothing for their trouble, my apologies. I'm just having trouble relating to people right now. This has been a frequent complaint in my relationships (romantic and otherwise), and more or less a problem I've been dealing with for decades now.  It's something all the men in my family seem to share and I've never entirely understood it. But it frustrates people and I understand that. Usually, I'm not dealing with it, and now that I'm single I think I'm finally trying to take a stab at it. I would like to be easier to form a relationship with. I would like to be happier instead of this constant little rain cloud. But I don't know myself or my place in the world anymore and since it takes two points to create a line of connection, it's hard, if not impossible, to form that connection when my locus is detached and drifting.

So I'm working on grounding my locus in something that makes sense to me, and right now very little  about the world makes sense to me. I think I can do it, I just need to actually work on it rather than avoid and dissociate which has been my predominant mental pattern since, oh, I don't know, sometime in my teenage years when I realized I was trapped in a religious culture I didn't actually buy into too much.

But, yeah.  It's going to be difficult to relate to people until I know who I am and what I want in the world. And it's going to be next to impossible to date until I have that, and a better self esteem and a life I find more interesting. I find myself boring and apathetic right now and that makes it hard enough to sustain existing friendships, let alone form new ones or go on dates. I can't feel good about sharing my life with someone until I feel good about my life, you know?

The good news is there's lots I can do to change that. The bad news is, there's lots I NEED to do to change that.  And to start, I'm working on forming some understanding of where I came from, where I am, and where I want to go. This is probably a life-long process, but one I need to actually get some momentum going on.

Wish me luck!