Isolation

I find myself focusing more and more on my relative state of self-imposed isolation lately.  I'm realizing quite clearly that I am, for all intents and purposes, surrounded by people who genuinely care about my well-being -- whether that's family members, friends, or co-workers -- and yet I spend most of my time either holed up in my apartment alone with my thoughts, or faking my way through being jovial with the public while doing my job.  As I've mentioned before, my devotional walks every full moon tend to revolve around the thematic elements of my current thought processes, and this month's was no exception.

It was actually, perhaps, more literal than I've ever expected.  Last night while in the middle of my walk, a familiar vehicle pulled up alongside; my aunt's.  Let me preface what's to follow: I'm terrible at keeping in touch with people I don't see every day.  I'm borderline useless at it, to be completely honest.  And with my current schedule of work, I find very little time or motivation to be social and interact with people when I get home; I generally have time to get in my workout routine, cook and eat dinner, and then relax for an hour or so before going to bed.  It's not that the people I don't call or email aren't important to me -- they are, very much so -- it's that I'm so autonomous at this point that I fall into a basic loop and have little to share from my end of the conversation, and generally get any information updates I need through Facebook.

So, my aunt hits me with the sort of guilt trip that only a great family member can about not keeping in touch, and it hit home.  It wasn't news to me by any means, I know I'm lousy at it, and I don't pretend that I'm not.  It's not that I take them for granted, necessarily, but I suppose I forget that not everyone operates the way that I do when it comes to interactions.  Not everyone feels secure in their bonds without regular contact like I do, and that contributes to why I wind up in this isolated state.  I can maintain short-term contact with almost anyone, but long-term becomes a chore with people who don't understand how I act and react, socially.

This is all part of why I remain distant from others; it's easy to brush it off as part of some nihilistic aspect of my personality, but it's really built on the fact that I don't connect with people conventionally.  I don't need that close contact to feel connected to the people that I care about.  I value my personal space and my ability to remain distant.  I'd safely venture a guess and say that I feel more comfortable this way because so few people know the "real" me, the side that I don't show out in public, the one that doesn't hold back his opinions and doesn't bite his tongue to keep the acidic thoughts from spilling out with caustic results, the side that feels how I actually feel and not some forced socially-expected facade.  There's no risk in remaining distant from others, no vulnerabilities there.

Unfortunately, I've already seen where this distancing has cost me some very important relationships, ones that were built and fell into disrepair and ones that never had the chance to fully realize themselves.  That's probably the worst part of what I've come to see in all of this.  I've had so many opportunities to make changes in my course, socially, and because of my distant nature, I've squandered them.  Most of these I can brush off, but others I'm sure will bother me for years to come.  It's a lingering, bitter aftertaste, knowing that I'm my own biggest obstacle in forming meaningful relationships, but it's not really something that I can deny.

Worse yet, it's not really something that I want to change.  I'm perfectly alright with being so distant, despite what it has cost me.  Do I wish that I could change certain outcomes?  Yes, most certainly, but in the long run, I've had better luck being distant and avoiding getting sucked into bad situations.  It's a risk that I'm willing to take to trust that anyone worth having in my life and in my social circle will see my distance as a normal thing and understand why I am the way that I am.  Part of the path that I'm on concentrates on patience and waiting for the right time, and this is really no different.