Put 30 minutes on the timer and let's begin a new week.

It's funny, my weekends seem to fly by but I never seem to do much in them. I finally got out of the house this weekend just past. My Mom threw a shindig yesterday and I helped with some of the setup and most of the cleanup. She managed to fit 28 people into her house, which worked out fabulously. It was tight enough that people had to visit with each other and moved around enough that no little groups really formed. It was a good party.

I called the boys when I got home at 6pm to be a little silly and suggest that we get together sometime that weekend. I keep having these great intentions of making plans and going out with them and I never do. I've been thinking about maybe inviting them over for a little dinner party thing. I also need to return some dinner invitations with my own at some point. It's just hard to get myself thinking socially when I am so reclusive lately.

It's not a great loss, I don't think, my lack of sociability now that I am older. I did the social butterfly routine for a few years in my early 20s. Clubbing every Friday night, the parties, the get togethers, the meeting of hundreds of people from the various online communities I hung out in. I was busy, I was social, I was miserable. It shouldn't surprise me that the slower my life gets the more stable and contented I become.

I don't want to be the classic man-island though. ("No man is an island") I do need the experiences and viewpoints of other people outside of my little family and my quiet home. I've come to realize more and more how much I am losing of my ability to make small talk and light social banter. I've tried over the past year to reach out to the people from my past that still mean something to me. I've tried to re-establish contact with J & J with no success. The boys and I are still friends but we suffer from the "I can see them anytime! They live in the same city!" syndrome. (You can always see them, so you never do. Heh.) My sister is busy with her job and life, I rarely see her socially anymore.

Add into that the ending of other friendships this past year and I'm left with a very insular life. That sucks. Enh.

I hate how awkward I feel now. Maybe I've felt this way always, actually. Used to have to get drunk to feel really social. I've always been shy and awkward, but I seem to remember being charming once upon a time. But memory can lie and maybe it is to me now. Who knows, really? The people that might know aren't talking. I was never charming with the boys. I was a dork and they loved me anyways so I can't even ask them.

I guess in some part of me that I try not to pay attention to I'm hurt. I'm hurt that I tried to reach out to people that were once my best friends, that once told me they loved me and whom I still love and they're not here now. There's the smart part of me, the wise part that says things change, people change and I used them hard before I walked away. That wise part says I shouldn't do anything more and just let it go. Wisdom and experience says that people come back when they need to, and sometimes the thread that ties us together has simply come to an end. When that thread ends, there's nothing that can be done by me except for plain old acceptance.

I've been working on that one. I really have. I tried. Still hurts though. I wonder if it's worth trying to make friends now. It seems like so much work sometimes. I miss being young and making friends the way I did then.

And that's the end of my 30.