Tying Up Loose Threads

I realize why I'm so lonely lately - the teen is pulling away.  he'll be 15 this winter, and that's the age when everything changed for me in my life, and shit went south for me and my mom.  it's different with moms and daughters than it is with moms and sons, but still...he's got some attitude lately, and it's not even because he's a mean-spirited person, he's just a teen.  it's hard not to take personally sometimes, and we do our best to address it with humor, but it makes me realize - or continue to realize, because it's been on my mind A LOT lately - that he's not going to be living with me forever, and I have to get ready to learn to be EVEN MORE alone that I usually am!  WOW.  that's big.  I need to make a real effort towards getting out in the community, engaging with hobbies, and figuring out how to be social enough to meet the people I need to have in my life to help keep it meaningful.

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I must have written the above paragraph over six months ago, because the blog dashboard shows that the last time I visited this piece was a month before the boy's 15th birthday (he'll be 16 in a little over 3 months).  but I have all these unfinished drafts hanging around, and I've been working with them, so here we are - and this is relevant, because I was just talking with my nutritionist about how I eat because I'm lonely, and she asked me to address it with my therapist (check me out, with a nutritionist and a therapist) to work out some coping skills, and here I run across a post that talks about dealing with my further upcoming isolation...

it's been ok, lately, with the fair number of extraneous humans cluttering up my energy fields due to our recent move, the teen's gigs, and the first public parental school obligation of the year - I've enjoyed my alone time because I've needed to just take care of me for a minute, and since I do spend energy encouraging the boy to get up, get out and be social, it's nice to see him taking advantage of the fact that we moved within walking distance of his school.  so now it's time for me to get back to figuring out how to be more socially active in a way that's fun, too.  I even thought it might be time to try the dating game again, since my last flight into that fancy - just before the move, this past spring - worked out so very poorly, and I seem to be a glutton for punishment...or just overbearingly lonely.

in terms of the teen's pulling away, it's inevitable, and I have no problem taking the inevitable in stride, but I do need to deal with it in practice, and so far, to that end, I'm hoping to attend a concert Saturday night.  the only thing I can really see getting in the way of that is my own overwhelming desire to stay home in comfy pajamas where I feel safe outweighing my interest in seeing live, culturally significant music played by talented artists in a sacred setting.  maybe I'll get crazy and invite someone to come along (I posted it on facebook).  let's see what happens!

Sunday 9/22 - ...

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Monday 11/4 - well, that didn't happen!  no one wanted to come with me, and I guess I didn't really feel like going, myself.  at least, not enough to go alone.  and now there are even More unfinished drafts on my blog dashboard, and I Still haven't put forth the effort to finish them up.  I did go see some people I know play live music a few weeks back, though, and that was fun.  I'm hoping to do it again soon.  I almost got back into the dating game, too, but got discouraged right off the bat, so that may take a bit more time.  sadly, all the kid wants to do is play video games, and he hasn't done anything social since that one game he went to in the beginning of the school year - well, he played in a local Magic the Gathering draft tournament, but that's not very social past the required grunts and clicks the teen players use to communicate across the table at their opponents.  sigh...it's getting to be the time of year when people hibernate, too, so I don't know how much that will be changing in the near future.  maybe the one friend who agreed to meet with me for lunch that one time will do it again, even though I talked their ear off, kept them for hours past lunch, and sabotaged both our afternoon plans.  hmm, needy much?  yes I am.