Making Friends

(This entry was started back in August, when we first moved)

I forgot how draining and repetitive and, in short, how much work it is to rebuild a network of friends. Even reading/thinking that sounds so callous when you think about what friendship is and how important friends actually become to your life. It feels surreal now to think that in a few years some of the people I am meeting now may go on to be close friends.

I have done it before, and I can do it again, and this time I have the support of my existing friendship network, even if they are 600 miles away. And I have Creepy, of course. The last time I was consciously building a support network I had lost almost all of my old friends due to the isolation inflicted on me by my ex, and I was still rediscovering who I was after being in such a restrictive cocoon of a relationship, AND suffering from depression to boot. I have my wings, now, and that does help a lot. But. It's still painful to travel for almost an hour on a swelteringly hot tram and feel that the whole exercise was a failure because Mini-D barely made eye contact with any of the other children and instead just quietly attempted to eat all of the host's lovingly prepared snacks. It wasn't a failure, of course. I met some more people and I learned some more things about the local area and I used my general shell-shockedness about the move to try to cover up my ignorance of social cues (I seriously need to work on this. So awkward.) And I made progress. It's just that the process of building a friendship is so slow that when you are really relying on it, it's noticeable.

But it will all be worth it in the end.

(Today)

We have been here for around 6 months and the process of friend making is still slow. However, I now have three or four people who I could call on for help in my local neighbourhood. I am figuring out who I have similarities with and who I don't and who is kind. I have a job which makes me meet people and soon I will be learning to drive - learning with people is a great friend-maker, I find.

Things are less awkward, and more easy, already.

Resolutions

I am making resolutions (yeah, a bit late). I decided to go out running again today as it's warmed up enough to do so and although it took a momentous EFFORT to push myself out of the door it was so, so worth it. I felt excited when starting out, decided to explore a new route, found a nice one which takes me over 2 railway bridges and the S-Bahn track, a bridge over a motorway with a stunning view of the hills and scenery (that actually made me stop for a second and think, fuck, this is where I live.) and past a farm right up to some fields. There's also a little pub and a paintball arena that I had no idea existed.

I need to be more present in the world, because I feel like it's passing me by once again. My resolution or current goal is to be out and interact with the world at least twice a day. Anything that gets me out of the house and not just for the minimum time ie picking up Mini D. So work counts, going for a run counts, seeing a friend counts, looking around the shops, taking the camera for a walk, anything really.

I did have a couple of others which were "Do at least one bit of housework every day" and "Spend at least 20 minutes with Mini D every day" but Creepy said that rather than try to do stuff with him, it was better to do stuff for myself and he will follow. So I've been trying this and weirdly he is right!