I had an odd day today. I was working on a story that I've been writing and something dawned on me. This thought rumbled at the back of my brain while I stubbornly banged away on the keyboard until I had to stop...

I thought about all of the people that I've made friends with over the years and how I either lost touch with them or somehow managed to push them out of my life. It occured to me that I can count my close friends on one hand with a couple of fingers left over and I wondered how it became that way. I've had the opportunity to meet and work with some truly amazing individuals, many that I still respect and admire. So why aren't they in my file anymore? Am I too lazy to maintain the relationships? No, I do try to stay in touch with close froends on a weekly sometimes daily basis depending on the person. I will admit to having bouts of laziness and phone screening because I sometimes just want to be alone. In other cases I've moved far away and I don't want my phone bill to become the size of our national debt. Does it mean that I'm a bad person? No I don't really buy that. I am flawed but I'm not the Anti-Christ. Do I have bad breath or BO? No I bathe and shower regularly. And don't even go to that place of my fashion choices. I don't really care what people wear as long as their comfortable. So why is it that you push people away? I think it boils down to our old buddy Fear. I tend to be a private person and share myself with a certain few. I know that I fear other people's judgement which often results in my classic Knee-Jerk-Response-Under-Pressure. I know that my vivid imagination can interfere under certain circumstances, but I have trouble with awareness-we'll get back to that in a moment. I push people away because I am afraid of having my feelings hurt, my heart broken and somebody stealing my GI Joe with the Kung Fu Grip (I always was a tomboy). It's not death that scares me, it's life. Interacting with humans on a day to day basis can be a terribly frightening experience-have you looked at the headlines recently? Yeah they're pretty nutty aren't they? So about this awareness thing that you mentioned above...yes, self awareness can be a daunting task especially if you've had your head immersed in sand for the last several years and stubbornly refuse to take it out. Gee that sounds a bit harsh don'tcha think? Possibly, I'm not too sure. I have to think about it some more. I haven't come up with definitive answers to the questions rolling through my bewildered brain. I don't think it can be solved in 24-48 hours like a cold tablet. So I'm going to ponder it some more.