And just like that

the bubble bursts.

Way I figure it, there are two main mistakes you can make in life.

1. Deluding yourself into thinking you need something from someone.

2. (Lower on the mistake scale, but far more insidious) Wanting something from someone.

I don't have a lot of needs beyond the basic physical requirements, but unfortunately I'm still foolish enough to want things from my interactions with others.

It's like a sick gambling addiction. You keep throwing the dice b/c every once in a while you hit. However, the ending always leaves you with a deficit. A man will eat one delicious peach in his life. He will then eat 342 that aren't even comparable, just hoping for the chance to repeat the sweet experience.

I'm not surprised. Where you stand with people is usually pretty set---even major events cause temporary transitions in our interpersonal dynamics. But I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit that I held out a small hope that my absence might be the impetus to reconnect, to take a little time, to make a little extra effort.

But I already knew the score. If they don't have time for you when you're right in front of their faces, they sure as shit don't have time for you when you are several K of pavement away. Nothing's actually changed. I just get to feel dumb for even hoping, just a little, that it might.

Why should anything have changed? I haven't. Not in a discernible way, at any rate.

But that is why the baby jebus invented movies and television. And chocolate. And starry nights. And dreaming.

As an aside: I really don't need to a speech about how to make the best of things. That's what I do. See the below post where I reach Ridiculous Heights of Joy over a movie arriving in the mail? If you ever opened your eyes and saw me, you might have noticed that I'm literally the person who stops and smells the flowers, in the supermarket, in other people's yards. I haul my sorry ass out of bed and go to work, pay my bills, contribute to charities I find worthwhile, and generally try to be decent. And I eke out meager little morsels of happiness from silly email strings and bad movies and dumb internet memes and driving a little too fast and playing music too loud and whatever other mild little wonders manifest. And I'm grateful for those things.

So when I say, or try to say, that I'm unhappy and I don't know how to fix it, please be advised: my failure is not due to lack of trying. All I ever do is try and try again. I'm just not very good at it and not smart enough to figure out a better approach.

So save me the stoicism, simple pleasures speech. And don't anybody else in the room put themselves out. If you don't want to listen to me, just tell me. It's so much cleaner, and kinder, than the alternative.

But then again, the fault is mine. I gotta quit making mistake number two.