Isolated

A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say. I was flipping through Facebook the other day and came across a photo my former college roommate posted. It was a group shot of her, her family and other friends from college and their families. Looking at their smiling faces, I felt cheated. Not because I wasn’t invited to the get together, but because this was how I envisioned my life was supposed to be. Me, my husband, my kids and our college friends hanging out and reminiscing. I don’t know why, but the picture made me feel so isolated and lonely. I do keep in touch with some friends from college, but haven’t seen most of them in years. I think the combination of being away in the Peace Corps, being married to someone unwilling to socialize much with my group of friends (you could blame it on the language barrier, but he also didn’t mix me and his friends together either), dealing with infertility, and becoming a single foster parent and I’ve mostly made myself a social pariah. When I was married my ex didn’t like me to leave a lot, so it cut down on visiting and spending quality time with friends. When he left and I became a single foster parent it was the hurdle of finding respite for the kids in my care that made gathering with friends more complicated. Now that I’m at a point where I could be most social I look around and it seems like there’s no one left. I wish I had that one really good girlfriend who I could call with any problem and she would listen, or show up with a bottle of wine or drag me out for a girls night or just come eat ice cream on the sofa and talk. I would want to be that person for someone else. I just don’t know how you make that happen. I have friends, I have people I can talk to, but I also feel like I lose people. Am I too needy? Do they feel I never make the time for them? I liked the photo of my roommate, her kids and husband and the other college friends with their spouses and kids. I just wish it didn’t leave me feeling so empty.

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