Old friends vs. new friends
This is Carolineine.
You know that saying, "Make new friends, but keep the old"? Well, we certainly have a problem with that one. Both making new friends AND keeping the old are just about impossible for us.
A lot of times, we get ourselves into huge boughts of loneliness that make us really, really depressed. We miss our old friends. We have a couple of old best friends that we miss especially hard sometimes, and wish they were here, wish we could see them, wish we could do the same old things together. It was like that last night for a little while. We talk about it inside quite a lot. About who misses who and why, why not to, who was friends with certain people in the 1st place. Some people really weren't real friends in the 1st place probably. Not if they were so willing to dismiss us so easily. Not if they were going to call us "demon-posessed". Not if they were going to disappear out of our lives when we needed them the most, and allow us to think they were dead for over a year, which was one of the most terrifying things that ever happened.
Its hard now to have any good memories of the people we were friends with in the past 10 years.
Mostly, we just want to forget everything. We just want to block out every memory we have with an entire group of "friends" we had. It causes too much pain. Some of us inside pretend that those former people just do not exist any more. It is easier than being angry or having any other feelings about those people.
We are in such a different place now. Our friends are other teachers at work. You know what? We have SO much fun with other teachers. Its so nice being around people who are emotionally stable (*ahem*....relatively so... after all, a lot of the time we talk is after we've been facing a classroom of wild children all day.) Every conversation doesn't leave us emotionally drained. We don't have to worry about accidently saying something that will permanently damage their psyche or that will make them go home and cut. They're not borderline or severly depressed or anorexic or bulimic. The people we are friends with now are older-- our age instead of younger like all our friends were before-- and understand about how in life you have responsibilities. They understand that you have to save your money for things like paying your mortgage and paying bills, instead of wasting it on expensive diet pills and new clothes every week. We send flowers and cards and talk about it when something sad happens. We laugh and tease each other. We give each other a hard time (seeing other teachers in the hall way a lot "do you EVER go to your classroom and actually TEACH?" " you do WORK here, right?") but no one stops and CRIES over it. Its much more freeing than the relationships we had before.
It is hard on the kids. There isn't the affection side of it any longer-- teachers don't hug or hold hands, like we did years ago with our old friends. That is very, very hard on Pilgrim, Jo, and the other kids. Its terribly hard because they're deprived of that now and they need it so badly. Its nice to get together with people who can sit down and have a meal and laugh and talk. I'm able to do that, but then if Pilgrim or Jo switches in, they're not able to. It presents a challenge for the right person to stay present at the right now. They consider our teacher friends "Carolineine's Friends" and they want their own.
What we really hope to do is find a friend or who we will eventually (someday, probably a long way off) be able to tell about everyone inside... who will accept everyone. A person who would be friends with everyone inside. That is probably a long time coming and we're going to have to get our minds together and in shape and mentally healthy a good deal more, but that would be really great. We've come a long long way in the past couple of years... it really is too bad that our last best friend didn't hang in there a little while longer. Its her loss now. Some day I hope we will have a friend that even Mae, the kids, and Jo and Pilgrim will consider their friend too, all of us.
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