grief

i am grieving the loss of friendships.  not of people who are around.  but the depth.  the connection.  grief.  and i have all of the stages.  i feel pretty hopeless right now in the acceptance of it.  instead of people being there, i feel like i get kudos for doing it on my own, for making different friends.  it probably would all be ok, but that's how it was in my marriage.  kudos if i did what he wanted.  not what i desperately needed.  and so, i ache.  i know how it is.  i see how it is.  i get it.  but i am grieving more than i did over the loss of my husband in some ways.  because he never cared about my heart.  he didn't make that effort.  to know me.  but my friends did.
and i feel left.  abandoned.  i feel like in my deepest needs i've been left hanging.  superficial.  talk about all kinds of stuff but not the important stuff.  no, not my ex.  real feelings.  stuff that's hard.  and who i am is pretty crummy because i can't just throw it out there in 15 minutes.
so, i grieve.  alone.
and i...me....the encourager and believer and hopeful one....feels so desperately hopeless in this realm.  i can't really cry much more.  i've become the outsider looking in.  and i am not able to go out and make new everything right now.  because if my husband thought so lowly of me.  and my friends disappear.  and my church family too.  then...there's really not much hope of someone else wanting to really know me.
to boot, my going off to college son was super mean today.  told me i work maybe once a week.  that i do nothing.  that i don't get anything.  that he can't believe i don't have money to send him to college.  that he doesn't want to spend any time with me.  wow.  painful.  i bawled.  i told him how much i love him.  how i know that he'll do good things.  but i also told him that it's not ok with me that he checks out, makes constant messes around the house and refuses to help at all.  told him that if he comes home in the summers from college he will have to clean and help.  and that if he doesn't want to then he should find a job and make living arrangements.  i bawled as i said it.  told him it's not that i don't want him here.....that i need him, just as who he is.  but that it would be wrong of me to allow him to behave that way.  to allow him to use me and treat me like crap.  now he's feeling better.  he was going to leave.....but he couldn't have my car.  ha.
but then, while i was out, i realized that in the last week i've probably had an hour of contact with anybody besides for him.  and i've initiated much of it.  which......i've told myself i should quit doing.  but my heart cries out to be included.  so, i keep messing it up and asking.  i need to let go.  to take what is actually offered and quit hoping for more.  quit hoping for what was.
when will i quit crying?  even though i'm so happy about so much.  learning so much.  still.  this hurts.  a lot.
take a breath.
move on.
don't take it personally.  i keep telling myself that. it's not working so well.  but...i'll keep on  until it does.  i have a hopeless sense, but i am not without hope.  i just don't want to let go yet.  i'm not ready.  it hurts too much.  so.....as much as the wishing and holding on hurts, for now, it's all i can deal with.
i long for words.  friend words.  i long for real.  i long.  to be missed.
so, there's grief.  and that's normal.  but that doesn't make it easy.
ok.  back to living.
yes, alone. no, nobody cares what i'm doing or not doing.
just me.  here.  wishing that sometimes i'd get the "hey, i've been missing how we used to talk.....".
yeah. i know.  pathetic.  i get to miss it while everybody else moves on.
blah.
i'm shaken.
but i'll keep loving.  keep feeling.  i refuse to close down.  to deny feeling.  done that.  been there.  i'd rather hurt than do that.  and....i do love.  dearly and truly.
even when letting go.
i want to be a blessing.