Monday, January 30
Jan. 31st, 2023 01:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Okay temperatures. It was a little warmer again.
I finally connected with Trainwreck. It is kind of ridiculous, the actual mechanism of talking to her on the phone. We talk about once a week, but all week long it's just TRYING to connect. She texts, saying she would like to talk, so I try to call her. She texts back that she can't talk, try later? I am already on my way to the riding barn, so I text that I can call her when I get home. Then she will text that she is in bed. She goes to bed at 8 p.m. For days.
Anyhow, I finally actually spoke with her, and she wasn't going to ask anything about me again. She wanted to talk about how lonely she is, and how hard it all is, etc. I kind of shoehorned in a sentence or two about how pottery was going, and she had nothing to say about it. Like "why would you talk about your life? I was whining over here".
I actually do have some empathy for her about being lonely. I DO know what that is like, and I DO know how nearly impossible it is to make actual friends. I get it. You compound that with her living in a literal ghost town, her kids grown and gone, and no partner, and yes, I believe that she is lonely.
She also has never cultivated any hobbies or interests. It helps a lot to have any kind of creative outlet, like painting or quilting or...anything. That kind of thing can lead to being part of a group that shares that interest, like my pottery group. Then you have somewhere to go and be around people.
Other people might be part of community groups, like being part of the Lion's Club, or anything to do with the town, a church group, committees, the local library, that kind of thing. She is not the right person for anything like that.
Then the other fall backs, like playing golf in the summer, or being on the local curling team or bowling team, are also not her thing.
I actually think that if she lived in a bigger town, she would really do well to work at a soup kitchen. She loves to cook, and the only thing she might do is try to bring in all kinds of sketchy food she sourced from something like someone throwing stuff out, or things she "found" in her freezer but couldn't tell you how old it was. I guess whoever is running the soup kitchen would be able to screen for that kind of thing.
I get that she is lonely. I get that she no longer has any purpose in life, no goals, and no schedule. It's hard. I have dealt with that too. You literally have to make the decision to FIND goals, and to MAKE a structure so that you don't just go nuts.
Most people just have jobs that dictate their structure and give them social context, or kids, or even a partner. She doesn't have any of those things. I do have a partner, but his being gone a lot can make it tough.
When you find yourself in this kind of position, you really have to work to make sense out of life. You have to go out there and MAKE elements that require that you treat them like a job almost. Things that you commit to, and dedicate yourself to. That will also end up being a way to connect with other people who are like-minded.
Here's the thing. Almost every "community group" kind of thing would be hard for her to fit in. She's got addictions and mental health issues, shows up looking like a homeless person, would likely have disagreements heatedly with everyone, would probably resist any kind of "rules" or expectations they had. You might think "really? Like what?" Oh, I don't know. Like wearing appropriate clothing, or being sober, or ...I don't know. Be creative. Any rule or social appropriateness would be a problem for her, sooner or later.
Bottom line: I am sorry that she is lonely. Fitting into average social groups might not even be possible for her now.
I went to pottery, and there were people around. They were mostly building more ladies like we did last week, and there was more hilarity about boobs.
The lady that I often work with later, after everyone else goes home (they are all gone by six or seven at the latest) was there, and we had lots of fun joking around. I really enjoy her company.
I threw one vase-like item, glazed four other items, and that left me with lots of clean up. I was good about recognizing that I would have a lot of clean up to do, and started before I got tired.
I got done in reasonable time, and managed to get some groceries. Not a huge amount this time, as last week's haul was enormous, but was meant to provide canned/dry staples for several weeks. Today I mostly got "fresh" items.
I resisted the urge to go shopping just for the sake of entertainment.
I learned that there are about 5400 species of mammals, and 1400 of those species are types of bats. Bats make up around twenty percent of all known mammal species.
https://www.bats.org.uk/about-bats#:~:text=Bats%20are%20fascinating%20animals%20%E2%80%93%20the,of%20all%20mammal%20species%20worldwide.
Okay temperatures. It was a little warmer again.
I finally connected with Trainwreck. It is kind of ridiculous, the actual mechanism of talking to her on the phone. We talk about once a week, but all week long it's just TRYING to connect. She texts, saying she would like to talk, so I try to call her. She texts back that she can't talk, try later? I am already on my way to the riding barn, so I text that I can call her when I get home. Then she will text that she is in bed. She goes to bed at 8 p.m. For days.
Anyhow, I finally actually spoke with her, and she wasn't going to ask anything about me again. She wanted to talk about how lonely she is, and how hard it all is, etc. I kind of shoehorned in a sentence or two about how pottery was going, and she had nothing to say about it. Like "why would you talk about your life? I was whining over here".
I actually do have some empathy for her about being lonely. I DO know what that is like, and I DO know how nearly impossible it is to make actual friends. I get it. You compound that with her living in a literal ghost town, her kids grown and gone, and no partner, and yes, I believe that she is lonely.
She also has never cultivated any hobbies or interests. It helps a lot to have any kind of creative outlet, like painting or quilting or...anything. That kind of thing can lead to being part of a group that shares that interest, like my pottery group. Then you have somewhere to go and be around people.
Other people might be part of community groups, like being part of the Lion's Club, or anything to do with the town, a church group, committees, the local library, that kind of thing. She is not the right person for anything like that.
Then the other fall backs, like playing golf in the summer, or being on the local curling team or bowling team, are also not her thing.
I actually think that if she lived in a bigger town, she would really do well to work at a soup kitchen. She loves to cook, and the only thing she might do is try to bring in all kinds of sketchy food she sourced from something like someone throwing stuff out, or things she "found" in her freezer but couldn't tell you how old it was. I guess whoever is running the soup kitchen would be able to screen for that kind of thing.
I get that she is lonely. I get that she no longer has any purpose in life, no goals, and no schedule. It's hard. I have dealt with that too. You literally have to make the decision to FIND goals, and to MAKE a structure so that you don't just go nuts.
Most people just have jobs that dictate their structure and give them social context, or kids, or even a partner. She doesn't have any of those things. I do have a partner, but his being gone a lot can make it tough.
When you find yourself in this kind of position, you really have to work to make sense out of life. You have to go out there and MAKE elements that require that you treat them like a job almost. Things that you commit to, and dedicate yourself to. That will also end up being a way to connect with other people who are like-minded.
Here's the thing. Almost every "community group" kind of thing would be hard for her to fit in. She's got addictions and mental health issues, shows up looking like a homeless person, would likely have disagreements heatedly with everyone, would probably resist any kind of "rules" or expectations they had. You might think "really? Like what?" Oh, I don't know. Like wearing appropriate clothing, or being sober, or ...I don't know. Be creative. Any rule or social appropriateness would be a problem for her, sooner or later.
Bottom line: I am sorry that she is lonely. Fitting into average social groups might not even be possible for her now.
I went to pottery, and there were people around. They were mostly building more ladies like we did last week, and there was more hilarity about boobs.
The lady that I often work with later, after everyone else goes home (they are all gone by six or seven at the latest) was there, and we had lots of fun joking around. I really enjoy her company.
I threw one vase-like item, glazed four other items, and that left me with lots of clean up. I was good about recognizing that I would have a lot of clean up to do, and started before I got tired.
I got done in reasonable time, and managed to get some groceries. Not a huge amount this time, as last week's haul was enormous, but was meant to provide canned/dry staples for several weeks. Today I mostly got "fresh" items.
I resisted the urge to go shopping just for the sake of entertainment.
I learned that there are about 5400 species of mammals, and 1400 of those species are types of bats. Bats make up around twenty percent of all known mammal species.
https://www.bats.org.uk/about-bats#:~:text=Bats%20are%20fascinating%20animals%20%E2%80%93%20the,of%20all%20mammal%20species%20worldwide.
