As I’m writing in my journal, it’s late night in a sunless July. I’m returning to my hotel room in Udine, somewhere in Italy that does as well look like a continuation of the Austrian landscape. It’s about 3 in the morning. This marks the first wedding that sends me home almost sober and in tears. I didn’t know how it would feel if, in my late 20s, I suddenly realized how lonely I feel around my friends. Friends who have become part of my identity. Not my entire identity, even, but a fragment of it. One I have outgrown as well. Some of those friendships were so dear to me, and they too have apparently run their course. And that painful fact came visiting me tonight, and I don’t know what to do with it, so I just write. And the more I try to describe it, the more vague it becomes, the meaning of what I’m feeling and experiencing now.
Je me sens très seule maintenant.
It has been a long day of couples taking pictures with every cute decoration of the venue, and me pretending it’s going to get better, it will be fun.
“How’s your love life, Sammy?” I was asked a couple of times today.
“I’m currently dating myself,” they heard back.
I don’t feel lonely because I wanted to show up here with a lover or because I want to be in a relationship. No, not at all. I feel alone in the company of my friends. Male friendship can be very tricky. I have had some very strong male friendships, and I have lost most of them, either because the platonic tipped over or the new girlfriend didn’t approve of me. So, may this year be a year in which I manifest a few amazing girl-girl friendships, and letting go the ones that only bring me down.
Yes, it was me. I wept in the bathroom. Oh, wait a minute! Maybe, after all, I am maudlin. :0