Friends? Am I supposed to have those anymore?
Let's look at a few things that were brought to my attention...
Over the course of the last few years, I've had a bunch of things happen, both good and bad. It is said that I've removed myself from the pagan community here. I can tell you, it wasn't by choice, but by necessity, of one kind or another. I once belonged to a church, one that I was hoping to become a minister of. While I know that during the time that I left everyone was still trying to get their shit together and move forward, the fact remains that for me, the church was my refuge at that time. I was jobless, living with my parents, spiraling ever downward into a depression that I'm still, three years later, recovering from. There were lots of things going on internally with the Clergy that left a bad taste in my mouth, not to mention that as far as our Realm work went, I felt like we were doing nothing but running into the same wall over and over again. Frustrated and depressed, I felt it was best to remove myself from the equation and work on my own mental health. I was still friends with everyone. We still would hang out. We'd do pagan-y things together. We'd drink and have a good time. We'd chat, just because.
I did not leave my coven. My coven was officially disbanded after a predetermined time past the death of one of the founding members. There was an attempt at reviving some practices, but, as far as I recall, we never had any sort of initiation or made any formal declarations to one another. I would have loved to participate in more activities with this group, but I also had a job where the hours I worked made having a social life very inconvenient. I would still get the occasional "Hi, how ya doing?" from someone, or we'd chat on facebook. I'd still get invites to things that were going down, but the unfortunate thing was that I was never given enough notice on the exact dates of things to get time off requests in, so the best I could ever do was a maybe that always turned into a no because of scheduling. And I had stated as such at the time I was asked. Repeatedly.
Over the past year or so, all communication seems to have stopped from most people, beyond the occasional "That's funny/interesting/whatever." on facebook. *shrugs* When I'd try to communicate, I'd be ignored. If I asked for assistance, I was ignored. Invites stopped coming (not that it matters much, because the current job still has me working inconvenient hours yet again.) At least, invites from the people I liked. I get more conversation from the few people I have as friends on facebook that I have never met in my entire life than I do from any of my local friends.
Then, earlier tonight, Wayne asked me why I didn't go out to the forest and see people like I've done the past couple of years. (If you'll recall, I have, in fact, showed up on Sundays to say hi as people left and help clean up.) All I did was shrug and stated "I had to work." Which is true, I did work today from noon to 4. I also pointed out that my truck is still up at the shop waiting to be worked on, and I've been imposing on my boyfriend's unemployed status, making him my chauffeur, enough. And I realized, as I walked back into my room, I haven't heard anything of any significance from anyone in well over 6 months, beyond Bri's comment that he missed me when I texted him my new number and a brief text exchange from Jen. I realized that I had stopped trying around that time, too. So maybe the blame could be placed on all of us.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I had mentioned to Shawn that I was thinking about going back to SG. Not looking to get back into Realm, necessarily, but at least get back out there and trying to rebuild those bonds. But then I started thinking and meditating on whether I should. And I realized that, no, it's not my place anymore. I don't need community. Do I miss it? Yes. Will I always miss it? Certainly. But the loss of those individual friendships hurts more that the loss of community.
Whatever the case may be, I'm done for now. I defriended a lot of people tonight on facebook. Some were really just random people who friended me because I was friends with the major players in the pagan community. Some I had counted on once upon a time as my closest and dearest friends.
I'm tired of wondering if, people. I'm tired of people assuming my maybes will always end up a no. I'm tired of trying and getting nowhere. Don't roll your eyes and lay this all on me, assuming I'm doing nothing but causing drama. (Or do it, I really don't care, anymore.)
Over the course of the last few years, I've had a bunch of things happen, both good and bad. It is said that I've removed myself from the pagan community here. I can tell you, it wasn't by choice, but by necessity, of one kind or another. I once belonged to a church, one that I was hoping to become a minister of. While I know that during the time that I left everyone was still trying to get their shit together and move forward, the fact remains that for me, the church was my refuge at that time. I was jobless, living with my parents, spiraling ever downward into a depression that I'm still, three years later, recovering from. There were lots of things going on internally with the Clergy that left a bad taste in my mouth, not to mention that as far as our Realm work went, I felt like we were doing nothing but running into the same wall over and over again. Frustrated and depressed, I felt it was best to remove myself from the equation and work on my own mental health. I was still friends with everyone. We still would hang out. We'd do pagan-y things together. We'd drink and have a good time. We'd chat, just because.
I did not leave my coven. My coven was officially disbanded after a predetermined time past the death of one of the founding members. There was an attempt at reviving some practices, but, as far as I recall, we never had any sort of initiation or made any formal declarations to one another. I would have loved to participate in more activities with this group, but I also had a job where the hours I worked made having a social life very inconvenient. I would still get the occasional "Hi, how ya doing?" from someone, or we'd chat on facebook. I'd still get invites to things that were going down, but the unfortunate thing was that I was never given enough notice on the exact dates of things to get time off requests in, so the best I could ever do was a maybe that always turned into a no because of scheduling. And I had stated as such at the time I was asked. Repeatedly.
Over the past year or so, all communication seems to have stopped from most people, beyond the occasional "That's funny/interesting/whatever." on facebook. *shrugs* When I'd try to communicate, I'd be ignored. If I asked for assistance, I was ignored. Invites stopped coming (not that it matters much, because the current job still has me working inconvenient hours yet again.) At least, invites from the people I liked. I get more conversation from the few people I have as friends on facebook that I have never met in my entire life than I do from any of my local friends.
Then, earlier tonight, Wayne asked me why I didn't go out to the forest and see people like I've done the past couple of years. (If you'll recall, I have, in fact, showed up on Sundays to say hi as people left and help clean up.) All I did was shrug and stated "I had to work." Which is true, I did work today from noon to 4. I also pointed out that my truck is still up at the shop waiting to be worked on, and I've been imposing on my boyfriend's unemployed status, making him my chauffeur, enough. And I realized, as I walked back into my room, I haven't heard anything of any significance from anyone in well over 6 months, beyond Bri's comment that he missed me when I texted him my new number and a brief text exchange from Jen. I realized that I had stopped trying around that time, too. So maybe the blame could be placed on all of us.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I had mentioned to Shawn that I was thinking about going back to SG. Not looking to get back into Realm, necessarily, but at least get back out there and trying to rebuild those bonds. But then I started thinking and meditating on whether I should. And I realized that, no, it's not my place anymore. I don't need community. Do I miss it? Yes. Will I always miss it? Certainly. But the loss of those individual friendships hurts more that the loss of community.
Whatever the case may be, I'm done for now. I defriended a lot of people tonight on facebook. Some were really just random people who friended me because I was friends with the major players in the pagan community. Some I had counted on once upon a time as my closest and dearest friends.
I'm tired of wondering if, people. I'm tired of people assuming my maybes will always end up a no. I'm tired of trying and getting nowhere. Don't roll your eyes and lay this all on me, assuming I'm doing nothing but causing drama. (Or do it, I really don't care, anymore.)