i haven’t cried in a really long time.  probably since the end of nursing school when my parents wouldn’t help me.  i cried tonight.  i cried because in a book i was reading one of the characters, who thinks he is the only person left in the world, finds a cat. he names it shadow because it follows him around.  but then time passes, and the cat passes away, and  he is alone again.  and i feel like that man. (though my cat is snuggled up right next to me)  i feel like i am running out of people.  i have friends.  i even have good friends.  but i have no best friend anymore.  and all the boys go away.  worse than the going away, they replace me.  one of my buttons, my major button, is being forgotten.  and the boys, they forget so soon.  i realize boys are different, they aren’t very good an experiencing their emotions.  they just move on.  but that doesn’t make it hurt less.  a friend of ross’ (i know her as well, though not very well) set him up on a date tonight.  and he called to warn me that he was meeting this girl at elysium in case i decided to go to 80s night.  it was nice of him to warn me.  it would have been quite a hit,  but now i am sort of afraid of elysium.  which was one of my happy places.  do these feelings of loneliness ever go away?  when my mom was in her 40s, i don’t remember her crying or commenting on loneliness.  but mom was bitter, so perhaps that is what her loneliness looked like.  i am afraid i am never going to have someone to hold onto while i go to sleep.  that feeling of being “here” that comes with it.  i don’t need someone to prove my self worth, but i sure would like someone that cares it is me here.  i am important to my patients.  what i do for them has meaning, important meaning.  but someone else could do it.  it might be different, but it would still be enough.  and, as has been proven several times before, even boys can find someone else, someone else can do exactly what i was doing in the relationship.  but for the time i am there, with them, i feel a little more important than just being a nurse.  i feel that i am harder to substitute.  but then days like today happen and i feel instantly replaceable and alone.

there is a wall between friends.  it is a wall that manages expectations.  it is an important wall.  there are a number of people on the other side of that wall from me.  and i am glad they are there.