No Buffalo

Today was fairly normal, especially in that there was nothing new about it. Same old stuff all around. And inside. I carry around this feeling of being alone in everything I do, with no one to talk to, and no one talking to me. My friendships have all become topical and shallow. No one wants to talk to me about important things in their lives. And they don't want me to talk either. Things are avoided by simply saying "it's complicated".

So where have all my friends gone? Maybe this is how the indians felt way back when when they looked around and couldn't find any more buffalo. Now all that's left is miles of grassland with nothing there. I guess that's how my insides look. I just don't know how it got that way. When did friends stop talking to me? When did I become poor company? When did I become a substitute for people who couldn't make it there? When did I become plan D?

I suppose it's been a gradual slippage that suddenly amounted to a whole lot of distance. My delusional tendency to insist that nothing is wrong prevented me from seeing incremental change going on around me. Unable to see that I am not included or invited. Only intruding. But now it's here and there's nothing I can do about it. I've slipped beyond the seventh circle of hell (I always wanted to say that) into a place where my relationships with others are akin to the relationship one might have with a goldfish. Or a plant. Fake, of course, so there's no need to water it.

And now that's normal. Nothing new.