Friend Date

Housemate and I have a friend date to go climbing at the rock gym today.  It'll be my third time and I'm really excited about going.  I'm planning to go again on Sunday, too.

I'm also excited about the friend date.  Although we live together and see each other daily our friendship has taken a backseat to her blossoming relationship with a great guy, and much as I like him I can't help but being a little jealous of him for being the one she talks to about all the little and big things going on in her life.  He and his dog have essentially moved in to our house, which is nice, but which occasionally makes me feel strange, and I've retreated or kept busy with other people or generally taken steps not to be in situations where I feel like the third wheel.  The effect is that Housemate and I don't talk as often or as intimately, and are not as close as we once were.  This exact situation happened in reverse last fall, except that I was in love and always at my sweetie's place, and she was single and felt alone and like I wasn't available to her.  We struggled through that, and talked about it all pretty openly, as we'll struggle through this. 

Weekly friend dates will help, I'm hopeful.  We also have our morning walks, although she's been talking about wanting to train to run instead.  So this morning we walked the first couple of miles and then ran.  And as we ran it was much harder to talk meaningfully.  And she runs a little faster than me so after about a mile or a mile and a quarter she pulled ahead and I watched her go.  Coincidentally enough her boyfriend and his dog were arriving at the same trail for their own run and I watched them cross the street to the trail from the parking lot after she ran by it.  They sprinted up to catch up with her, and I watched them surprise her by overtaking her from behind, and I could see from the distance how energetic and happy all three of them were, and they bounded along together getting further and further away.      

[UPDATE:  A few hours later and I feel like this is a whiny post.  I won't take it down, but I sort of wish I hadn't put it up.] 

[UPDATE 2: It's the next morning.  I reread it and it doesn't sound particularly whiny.  Is it possible to acknowledge sadness, wistfulness, a sense of increased distance from a cherished friend, without being whiny about it?  Clearly, I'm not sure.] 

Comments

[WAB]

The post did not sound whinny, just nostalgic and wistful. That you are willing to reveal these moods to your readers so eloquently is one of the great charms of this blog.

[laura]

in response to your update #2, it is possible and you've done it perfectly in this entry. i agree with WAB--the reason i love to read your blog is that you're a real person who doesn't seem to have hyped up any part of your personality for display. you're funny, you're reflective, you're upset, and we get to see all of these things. and, at least as they're presented here, you deal well with these emotions and present them beautifully. i hope things with Housemate turn out well.

[PG]

Not whiny -- I think the posts about which you're unsure often are the ones that I can find the most parallel in my own life. Haven't we all done this, gone through a period where either we or the person with whom we once spent most of our free time now is off with someone else, and we are happy for him but wistful for the old way, or we're blissful with our new person but regretful that we're neglecting the old?