Two things I’m sitting here thinking about yesterday:
One is that I think sometimes I struggle because I don’t spend as much time with my best friend as I should. And, that’s not me feeling guilt-ridden for it. It’s more being frustrated with adult life and responsibilities and only having so much time in a given day, week, or month. Ideally, we see one another once a week, maybe every two. But, this last stretch was the better part of three weeks. Which, in the scheme of things isn’t that long... But, it feels long. I am extraordinarily lucky to have someone in my life that just gets me so well. (And I would like to state here, for the record, that she’s not the only one that does... But, she’s the closest of my dearest friends geographically.) Not just because we’ve spent so much time together, but because our brains function very much along similar wavelengths. So much so that I know when there’s a third party they might feel left out except that we work hard to pull them in on the fun- and more often than not we succeed. We have our own language (rather like, we are quick to point out, the episode “Darmok” in Star Trek TNG) made up of an extensive vocabulary of quotes (from shows, music, and ourselves) and a mythos that is constantly evolving over time- some ~15 years worth at this point.
I say all that not to brag, but to say that there’s a lot of healing and bolstering that comes just from being known. From being amongst your own kind. I spend a lot of time feeling out of step with the people in my daily life. I love them; of course I do. And, I like to think they love me, too. But, they often don’t know what to make of me. And I’m baffled by their motivations, mistrust, and behaviors. A joke that misses the mark. A story that I tell that doesn’t fit in with their world view. Sharing a bit of my silliness and color and queerness that drops at their feet and stays there. I feel very alone at my core most of the time, very separate. Not even a square peg in a round-hole world, but something else entirely. There’s no space that quite feels like one I should occupy. I can manage for a time, but it’s tiresome and and makes me sad. I worry a lot that there’s something fundamentally different about me and I’m mostly being humored because that’s what people do when they can’t connect with something they don’t understand. Or worse, when the one they’re trying to connect with doesn’t understand them.
Which is why it’s necessary for me to take this time with my best friend because when I’m with her I don’t feel like that. From the moment we met, I never felt like that. Not just because she’s capable of relating from the outside, though she can, but because she looks at my life and sees something familiar. I don’t have to explain what I’ve done or how I feel, because she’s a step ahead and there with me already. But, I can explain and not feel like a crazy person.
Which, I suppose is a long-winded way of saying I missed her these last few weeks and I’m grateful for the time we got to spend together. Since she lives across town it’s not often she’s in my space anymore... Having her here and accepting it off-hand (because it’s all very you and you are great!)... I’ve said that my home is very much the place I let go and just be me. How everything in it is a carefully curated collection of the things I love, collect, have been gifted, etc. Having someone who knows me inside and out and loves me... in my space loving that space that is an extension of me? I needed that. Because we can’t have people in our heads, not really. But I can watch someone walk through my home which is a physical representation of my headspace, and see that being appreciated. I don’t realize how much that means to me until it’s happening.
Thing two is that I did get to do some explaining of the new things in my space to my other guest. And if there’s one thing I love it’s explaining why I have something in my home- everything has a reason. Most of them are very sentimental.
“Why is this card here?” Well, it was sent to me by a friend- she made it. Like this card here, and that card over there, and that card over there... “Wow, I didn’t even notice those!” They didn’t make them all by hand, but they still thought enough of me to pick them and send them to me.
“What even made you decide you wanted to have x trinket??” I saw it and thought ‘that’s nifty! I’ll have it!’ That is how decorating works, right?
“Who did this artwork?” Oh!! My bestie painted that! And the one over there. And those two. And the one in the bathroom, too!
“What is that thing on your bed with the teeth??” OH! That was a birthday present- it’s an angler fish hat. “It’s so ugly!” I love it. :D I have a painting over here of an angler fish. “Wow! That’s something else, too!” Yes, but it’s painted by the same artist who did this cute painting, and those five over there and OH these that I get every month for being a patron!
I live to tell the tale of my things because the stories are more important than the things, but the things prompts the story. That’s why I keep them. Mostly to tell myself the stories, of course. But, I love telling them out loud, too. Any amount of poking around my space is like an archaeological dig in to my headspace: my interests and the people I care about.
I dunno, it’s just rolling around in my noggin today: that it was exhausting and lovely to have people in my space that love me. Even if the one doesn’t always get me. She tries. And especially the one who sees me exactly for who I am. It is so very important to be seen.
