My balls

I'm a ball dropper.

I drop balls.

I am the Queen of UN-successful completion.

Let me refresh your memory. I had a list, Christmas 2008, of all the Christmas goodies I was going to make, Christmas crafts to make with the kids to give to others as gifts, and a Christmas CD I was going to make and send to friends for Christmas. I failed. Everyone said kind words, telling me I didn't fail. Truth be told, I never burned those CD's, not even for this Christmas. I never made any of the goodies left on my list, the dough got thrown away. I never made the crafts.

I did it again this year. I bought everything needed to make all my goodies, only getting 3 things made, and one of those was made 3 weeks AFTER Christmas. I bought even more craft things to make with the kids only to go unmade.

Don't give me, "But you're single parenting right now. Cut yourself some slack." Yeah, yeah. I know. It's not that.

I stayed in better touch with my friends when I was an ocean away than I do now. When I moved back to the states I dropped many balls. I tried halfheartedly. We had just moved and were getting settled in. Then one of my close friends was in an accident with her husband, he died on impact and she survived. I dropped the ball that was my family to be there for her and her family.

About a month after that, I found on MySp*ce a very close friend that I hadn't been in touch with for about 9 months.I did stay in touch with her while I lived in GE.We had been extremely close for many, many years. She was my maid of honor. If I named people godparents, she would have been one. She was in the room when I gave birth to the tween. We had helped each other through a ton of shit that life had thrown our way. We were each other's confidants. She was one of my forever friends.

The first thing I looked at were her pictures. That is when I was slapped in the face. She had gotten married. I was crushed. I still don't understand how she could marry and NOT tell me AT ALL. It wasn't a shotgun wedding either, or that I wouldn't have approved. For her to get re-married was HUGE. To not tell me was HUGE! Even she admitted that she had no reason for not telling me, and that she couldn't figure out why she hadn't. After trying to work through it and patch things up we attempted to stay in touch. I guess it became too much of an effort. Staying connected to someone you love should be effortless, NOT feel like a chore. Upon further reflection, I had shared with her some of what I was going through with my husbands mental health. I did receive a reply, but it was the last time I heard from her. I'm to blame as much as she is.

Which brings me back to my balls. I dropped many balls upon returning to the states. It was just recently that I put 2 and 2 together. I realized that the betrayal of someone I thought of as one of my Forever Friends affected more than just that friendship. I gave up on all of my friendships*. I gave up on me. I simply gave up. I withdrew from almost everything. If I look at the way I let her betrayal affect me and the way my husbands mental health affected me it is no wonder I pulled my head inside my shell like a turtle. I wish that I had a hard shell like a turtles. Maybe the act of withdrawing protected me like the hard shell protects the turtle.

Now I see that I have dropped all of my balls. It's time I start picking them back up, one ball at a time.

*After writing all of this I remembered that I had previously written about my friends betrayal, and the realization of it's affect on my other friendships. I didn't want to change what I had written. Anyway, I think most people don't go back and read older posts that I link to that give backstory to the one they are currently reading. So if you had a sense of 'I've read this before', you have. I felt it too.