Disappearing

Herself is experiencing the fading away of a few relationships. With changes in her activities and schedule, she no longer sees as often as she once did, some people with whom she used to enjoy a comfortable camaraderie.  Lives are busy; even when plans are made, they are superseded by more pressing things.  She sends e-mails or texts, but they remain unanswered.  It is like shouting into the wind, she thinks. A few 'likes' on Facebook cannot bridge the gap, and a distance grows, over which it becomes harder and harder to see the other person.

She is a bit sad.

Friendship has never been easy for her. People are tricky and confusing and hard to read, and social niceties are forever difficult. She questions and second-guesses her actions: has she not tried hard enough to maintain contact? Does she initiate contact too often and come across as needy or oddly persistent?  Did she say or do something that was annoying or insulting?  Is she as horrid a conversationalist as she suspects? Or perhaps she's just not that appealing a person.  Is she uninteresting? Embarrassing? Or just too ordinary?

She knows she's a bit of an odd duck. As a perpetual house elf, she is quite happy looking after others.  She recognizes, though, that people who do not understand this might feel uncomfortable. Without knowing that Herself finds joy in the nurturing, others may assume that she is attempting to render them indebted to her, or that she has some other maleficent motive. Perhaps they feel obligated to act similarly to her in return, even though she does not require -- or even want -- it to be so. Absolute parity is not necessary, nor is it even desirable:  she would probably be quite alarmed to receive the same amount of attention as she freely offers to others.  What she would like, really, is simply for others to initiate contact first on occasion.

Sometimes she reminds herself that she cannot take things personally. She understands that when life is complex, the effort to reach out can become too much work. Oftentimes when people are fraught, irritable, or depressed, they retreat into their mental caves and do not seek company.  Furthermore, people change and grow apart, and individuals in closer proximity fill their needs.  Loss of friendship through attrition seems to be inevitable.

Herself has always been terrible at interpreting absences of communication.  She cannot tell if others' silences are merely signs of busy lives, or hints to leave them alone, or wordless cries for help.  She knows what she would like under the same circumstances, but she cannot quite imagine what others would want. She is stymied and fatigued from trying to figure things out. She thinks that perhaps she will stop guessing, and merely wait to see what -- if anything -- transpires.

She needs a nap. And a hug.