Conversations (Not) Had

           As the semester comes to a start (6 snow days makes this count as a start) and I am back living with people who I used to consider to be my best friends, I am realizing that I am craving something new, something I have never really been able to put a finger on before. I am craving interaction with someone other than my family and my amazing, wonderful, and patient boyfriend, C. Before I explain, I talk to people all the time, like a lot. I tend to fill silence with words and jokes and I spend most of my time talking laughing on my behalf or just spewing words out hoping someone will catch the bait and start speaking words out loud. I have amazing conversations with C, and with my family, and I have even found that I like to talk to C’s friends, but when it comes to my friends, the friends that I chose to have in the beginning of my college career, words rarely get said that actually mean anything. We bitch, whine, and complain, and when we aren’t doing that, we talk about school, but other than that, there is no actual conversations to be had.

            My first semester of senior year, I had a hard time with handling being a full time (unpaid) teacher and a full time student, and often came back to my room feeling frustrated or like I was going to have a mental breakdown. My roommate started asking me about my day, and when I answered without the standard “fine” for a few days, she promptly told me that I am too negative and needed to either not tell her anything or say something positive. My suite-mates never asked, so my feelings of hurt, anger, frustration all went towards C, which made everything for us hard. Now, C and I have been together for 7 years, so my constant negativity was nothing compared to some of the things we have been through, but I believed I had nothing positive in my life (although I realize now that there were so many positives in the negative, like starting to plan the next phase of my life after graduation). I could not see through the thick fog that had taken over my life and focus on something good, and adding my roommates not giving two shits about my life just made me a very unbearable person. This was a few months ago, and I now realize how silly I was, but that does not change the fact that I was, and still am, hurt by the actions of the people around me.

            Now I am not saying that I am perfect and my friends are the ones to blame here, because I am not perfect, but I pride myself on always asking how other people are and helping to solve their problems. If I know something exciting is going on in someone’s life, I ask! If something not so great is happening, I offer my support. I am a talker, my family is a group of talkers with opinions and loud voices, mine being one of the loudest ones (shout out to my childhood BFF for turning me from quiet to obnoxiously loud, love ya), so being in a place with friends who do not talk at all ever (unless it is to complain or is about school) makes me want to go back to my freshman year self and say FIND OTHER FRIENDS. Don’t get me wrong. I love my friends, but I also love myself and my sanity, and is it so bad that I want to be able to talk to them about my life without being told to stop?

            Fast-forward to now. I am currently apartment shopping with C (one of the after-graduation exciting occurrences I mentioned), and I am both excited and nervous (he’s kind of a slob, but I can fix that, right?). I am moving in with a man I have been with since I was 14 years old. We are starting the next phase of our life together, and things could not be any better with us. My friends all know this; I had mentioned it to them in one of my *there is nothing being said here so I am just going to spew out words and see how it goes* sessions. Now, if it were one of my friends in this situation, I would be asking questions, sharing my excitement, talking. But, that is not the case, which is fine, but this situation applies to everything. My family is currently going through, and has been for a while, some pretty hard stuff that has been affecting me in such a negative way. Once again, trying desperately to find someone to share my feelings with other than C, I mentioned it to my friends and got nothing. Barely a nod. I just want to scream every time. Don’t they see, I just need someone to HEAR ME, to UNDERSTAND how I am feeling, to HOLD MY HAND while I cry for five minutes and then move on. I need a friend, or friends, like me. I need someone who likes to talk, who likes to listen, who genuinely cares. I am not saying my friends don’t care, but sometimes I feel that way. I want to be able to walk into my suite and feel comfortable sharing something so shitty, because getting things off my chest is my way of dealing with things. And yes, I have C, and I have my sister, my parents, my dogs, and D, but I am not with them all the time, and they have been putting up with me for a lifetime (minus C and the dogs, though C is pretty close to being there). Also, they are not always there. I need people other than C to talk to, to have a conversation with. Graduation is in less than four months. I am so ready I could cry.