Maybe it’s time for Linda to beat a retreat from blogland. She has been used, battered and bruised, cast aside like an old sock, apparently. So be it. Leave the place to the beautiful, glamorous, passionate people who are here as of right. She doesn’t expect to be wanted, loved, desired, admired, cared for, appreciated. Why should she? She belongs in the ranks of the eternally ordinary and everyday.
There are some friendships, some people, which are just too difficult to handle, too hard to please, no matter what you try to do. And she tries, she always tries, to please people. The awkward kid on the fringes of the group, who doesn’t know what she’s expected to do, how she’s supposed to make friends. She doesn’t push herself forward, she always waits for them to come to her, not out of arrogance or stand-offishness, but because why would they want her, why should she try to impose herself on them, what a joke that would be, imagine, her of all people, trying to find a friend. She doesn’t mean to upset or antagonise or disappoint anyone, but somehow she always does, and she ends up back here, alone and despised.
In here, it is just too easy to say things, anything, and assume that your words are just marks on a screen, just electrical impulses, nothing more nor less. What happens in blogland doesn’t count in the Real World. Why should anyone care, take anything seriously? It’s all a game, after all, just let it all go.
So, she will go back into the real world and deal with the real world people, and try to get through the next few days of enforced jollity, while the world around her celebrates. How will she hide the tears? How can it be that anyone will fail to notice that she has been crying? Blame the exhaustion. That’s it, that good old stand by, that universal excuse, and it’s not far from the truth either, as she drags through another day on three hours’ sleep.
And she’ll find herself reflecting on that eternal truth, that none of this really matters, that we are all imaginary people, playing at being alive, then putting ourselves back into the box, disconnecting our batteries, returning to the manufacturer, unserviceable goods. Otherwise, why would we be here? Why wouldn’t we be out there, living real lives?
She is rambling again, as she always does when she is tired. And full of self pity. And being unfair on the people who do care, the people who are there, because there are some, some kind souls who don’t want her to go. Perhaps. But maybe they are busy, and it’s not fair to expect them to shoulder her feelings at times like this. Her feelings are her own burden, she must carry them alone, no one else can do it for her. Even though the tiredness is almost overwhelming. She has to keep going, because there is only one alternative, and she has made promises that she will never go down that road. And if nothing else, she keeps her promises.