Unslumping

Woke up this morning and started feeling anxiety kicking back in. A and H weren’t very talkative Friday, and it made me start going into an anxiety spiral of ‘what if I lost them as friends?’ which was so gut-twisting it made me want to scream into the void.

But that put me into problem-solving mode. My friendship with A and H is a major lynch pin for my existence right now. Losing either of them could put me into a massive tailspin I might not be able to pull out of. It indicated a need for me to put more into my life that could help get me through tough times.

I’ve lost friends and communities before. It has, in fact, been a regular occurrence in my life. It’s what makes me prize a good friendship so much and fear the loss. But I’ve also managed to reach out and make new friends and join new communities. If I’ve done it before, I can do it again. I reminded myself that I have courage and tenacity. I may be weird but I’m reasonably personable and can, at least, make friends with the other weirdos.

Somehow that calmed me down and made it easier to accept that my fears that A and H would suddenly stop wanting to be my friend diminish. It also made me start thinking, though, about how I could increase the amount of socialization in my life once the pandemic is past.

Making friends as an adult can be difficult. I can’t expect other people to reach out to me, which means for better or for worse reaching out is up to me. My D&D group is a potential source for more socialization – I have a bucket list of things I want to do around Indiana, and maybe one or more of the group would be interested in coming along for real life adventures.

I’ve been wanting to pick up archery as a hobby since I was a child. Once I have a little income to spare for it, and we’re past the pandemic, I could see about getting a bow and seeing if the two guys in my group that have done archery would be willing to teach me. Who knows, maybe some of the people that haven’t done archery would want to learn, too.

I’m also going to be getting my own place eventually. If the 50/50 custody thing goes through, I should be living in a 3 bedroom with every other week to myself, which would be perfect for having friends come visit. I could go snag A from Missouri. Maybe Ohio A would want to visit. My sister J, and M, could probably make the trip up from TN. There’s also MC & C that live in southern Indiana and might want to come up to Indy for a visit.

There may even be people at my new place of employment that can be potential friends.

As long as I can stay above the worst of the depression I can keep going in the hope I’ll see better days ahead.