I always knew it, but now I really know it
I have created a handful of personal aphorisms in my many years on Planet Earth. One of the oldest is this: "Very few relationships are built to last forever."
I mention it because I now am on the losing side of those endings. I'm talking about people with whom I have been - or had been - close friends for years, even decades. There has never been a fight, nor, to my awareness, any disagreements. They just don't have time for me any more. I should emphasize that I don't expect to see them, or even to hear from them, regularly - not every day, not every week, not every month. But when I reach out and the other person does not reply, or, at least, not in any meaningful way, repeatedly, I presume that they're over me, not feeling it, have moved on, or whatever the current trendy phrase is.
People are busy. I know that. And I am aware that many people are busier than I am. But everyone has 24 hours a day. So, when I learn, from social media or otherwise, that they have made time for outings that I too would have loved to go on, and/or they are getting together with others whom I know, that excuse washes away. I don't know why, so this is a guess. They can't categorize me, can't understand me. They can't find a place in their minds or in their lives for who I am now, with no full-time career, no pension plan, no housemates and next to no family. Mayhap I appear adrift, lost, unmoored and too much trouble to deal with.
Believe it or not, I hate feeling sorry for myself. I'm doing the "next right thing" by trying hard to make new friends, and it may be working. I'm finding folks with common interests who, towing no baggage, can see me as I am now -- and what I still have to offer. Maybe the others can't handle my grief, my poverty or my trauma, though I speak rarely if ever of those issues. But what that also means is that they now are missing out on my creativity, my intellect and my love.