loss/regret/etc

[sgt.null]

i don't get all that close to people. i keep few friends. hell i keep in contact with you all more than some in my family. just the way i am. usually doesn't bother me. but sometimes i miss not having that great lost love. i was lucky enough to marry my great love. had two serious relationships before but never connected with either them. i have no great tragedy in my life. i don't feel like i missed out on anything. even missing the chance to live in europe back in '89. i write a lot about distance and loss. but i know that something just isn't there for me. the only person i've lost that really affected me was my dad. what is it like for any of you? i just can't regret anything. am i missing something? this is a serious question. i write about it. hell many of my dreams have over arching themes of loss that i keep revisiting. i talked to my mom on the phone last week and didn't realize i hadn't called her in many months. it just never occurs to me to call any of my family or friends. it just seems odd when other folks point it out to me.

[Loredoctor]

I understand how you feel. I don't care for anyone apart from my family (parents and a brother). Other than that, I don't like people being that close to me - I get uncomfortable. I think it's okay to be this way, as long you are happy within yourself.

[Fist and Faith]

Ditto for me. I have no rl friends. I don't regret it, because I don't have the time, energy, or desire to put into such things. Plus, I don't drink beer, and, apparently, that's the key to being friends with guys.

The only family I have nearby is my father and brother. Until Christy and I get our own place (we'll finally begin looking in the next few months), I'm living with my father, so I see him every day. My brother is a couple minutes away, but, though I used to try to have a relationship with him, he never put any effort into such things, so I stopped being the only one to drive over or call the other. My sister is many hours away. Which is unfortunate, because she and I would be close if we were close. I also have a half-sister who is less than an hour away, but we did not grow up together, and she doesn't much have time for it.

My three kids and Christy are the world to me.

Truly, I'm very happy with and grateful for the friendships I have here. The Watch means more to me than most people in rl realize. And most who do realize it think it's not right, or healthy, or something or other. But them's the breaks.

[hierachy]

Well, I guess I haven't had any really major losses... just that passing empty feeling when you realise you're not going to be spending time with someone any more.

As far as friends go... I have some very close friends that I would be very upset to lose.

[[Syl]]

Things have definitely been harder for me as I've gotten older. I've never been someone to have a lot of friends, though I've sometimes been lucky in that regard thanks to the navy and a few party years, but the friends I did have were very close. Now, the only real life friends I have are Dan, my best friend (since the age of 7), Josh, a buddy of mine from my linguist days in the military, and Shane and Stacy, two good friends from high school. I haven't seen Dan since his wedding 3 years ago, Josh since '99, Shane since '01, and Stacy since '96. We talk on the phone fairly regularly (especially Shane, since he's the only one that usually calls me instead of the other way around), email, and all that.

Other than the guys at work, I don't really see anybody else except my family. And though I get along well with the guys here, we seldom hang out.

So yeah, like with Fist, KW provides me some very crucial social interaction.

Speaking of family... As some of you know, I just got back from my grandmother's funeral. I was looking at the obituary, and two of the names struck a chord. The names of my sisters. I've never met them.

I've tried to find them before, going back to at least '97 when I first found you could look for people on the internet. No luck, though I once did find a phone number. Unfortunately, she'd moved out a few months earlier, and I just got the former roommate.

So I decided to check myspace. And I found someone with the same name, right age, etc. I asked her if she had a sister named Rachel and if she recognized my name. Yes on the first count, no on the second. So I explained things, and am now waiting for the response.

It was hard losing my grandmother. We were very close when I was young, and she's the first person I've lost that I really cared about. But the funeral was cathartic, and I'm glad she's no lunger in pain.

[Fist and Faith]

Wow! Amazing about your sisters! Good luck!

Sorry to hear about your grandmother. I hadn't heard about that. (I don't do much Watching outside the Pantheon lately.) My grandmother was extremely important to me. She died several years ago, just after her 90th birthday. A bit sick, and losing a little of herself, at the end. But at least I get to feel that she had a good, long life.

[Edge]

I have a few close friends, and one who's closer to me than a brother.

I had another friend just as close, who was killed by a drunk driver a few years ago on Christmas eve - his wife was pregnant at the time with their third child. I still feel his loss often, and Christmas for me is now a time always touched with mourning in the midst of celebration. I still talk with him in dreams at least once a week - it used to be every night.

I don't let people into my life very easily - but when I do, I would give them the shirt off my back if they needed it. And I know they'd do the same for me.

[Menolly]

Syl, I'm with Fist. Good luck on connecting with your sisters. It would be a wonderful thing to happen.

As far as not connecting with others IRL? Pheh, we're all just a bunch of aspies, or something similar...

What's your preseveration? I guess right now, I would have to say Pantheon for me...

[danlo]

Damm I haven't called my dad in a week and a half!

[sgt.null]

from my dad's first marriage i have two brothers i have never met and a sister i have only met twice (briefly) and have lost track of the two brothers i have known.

[Graehstone]

Josh, a buddy of mine from my linguist days in the military

I too was a linguist, in the Air Force though ... German and Russian ... Cold War Veteran.
And I hope that this thing with your sisters turns out well for you, it's not everyday one loses a family member only to gain two more.
As to the other topic here, I have a younger brother that I have not seen in ... in ... I have no clue, more than ten/fifteen years now I would guess.
Father ... somewhere, no loss.
Mother ... passed away too early in the eighties
Step sister and her subsequent family ... Okinawa last I heard ... I think.
So I guess this "frame of mind" as far as relatives go ... and having (true) friends is not such an uncommon thing.
Nice to know I am not alone in this and not an anomaly.

[[Syl]]

A Ru-ling, eh? Too cool. Hebrew for me.

[Worm of Despite]

I know a great deal of people through elementary to college that I'd consider acquaintances, but I only have three people in my inner circle. And only one of them do I see on a weekly basis; another I see at his work place, occasionally, and the third is on the 38th parallel in Korea, last I heard.

Of course, real people pale before the warming glow of numerous text lines! Huzzah!

[balon!]

It's really strange in my family. Except for my immediate members (my brothers and my Mom) we're all distances apart from each other. It makes a difference, but not nessecarily a negative one. In my family we all love each other, but we've never really felt the need to stay in contact other than when we see each other at reunions and meetings and such.

[Revan]

Good luck syl, I really hope it works out for you man.

I don't let people into my life very easily - but when I do, I would give them the shirt off my back if they needed it. And I know they'd do the same for me.

I'm much the same with my friends, and they with me. I have what you might consider a lot of casual friends; people i speak to a lot, go down to the pub with, cinema; etc. But i have very few people that i would consider true friends. And for those 4, (one of them i met off the watch) i love.

Sgt. i'm in america atm; and i've not told anyone in my close family where i am; or even that i was going. The only ones i'm really close to are my little sisters. But if they weren't there, i probably wouldn't see my family at all.

So, sgt, i don't think there is anything odd in the way you live your life at all. As Loremaster wisely said, "I think it's okay to be this way, as long you are happy within yourself."

[sgt.null]

nice to hea from you revan. sometimes iffel like i should connect more/better. but then i shrug it off. glad you came to see our country.

[lucimay]

i write about it too Sarge:

Crows Go

Crows go
black on blue
over the apple and cherry trees
over the backyard fences
behind the curtain
but that is out of memory,
out of mind.

Once my questions were about crows
about their leavings, their loud,
diagonal comments,
tirades, screamed down
from their comings and goings.

Once I loved my father
because he talked like
a southern Marlon Brando
confident and confused
and fatherless himself,
but he was too much a crow
and I was only a reflection in a black wing

Once I loved my mother
because she was still in her absence
a martyred saint
with no cause, no voice,
and no obvious distinction,
but she was too much a crow
and I was only a black feather
pulled from her breast.

Now I have loved too many
and I am the crow.
I sit in the tree and count my comrades.

[Sunbaneglasses]

Sometimes I feel odd because I never talk about my father and I have not visited his grave once in the 10 years since he died. My mother (they had been divorced for 7 years when he died) and my wife took my kids to his grave when they started asking a lot of questions about who my father was. I just did not feel up to it, I have a lot of good memories of him from when I was a child, but he blew all those to hell during my adolescence, teens, and early 20's. The fact that I hardly ever think of him really confuses me at moments like now when I do.

[matrixman]

I see where you're coming from, sarge. I'm pretty aloof myself. My family was never what you'd call a close and loving unit, so maybe that had a role in making me the person that I am. But I like my unencumbered, "unfettered" existence now. I have a few loose friends, and that's enough. I have the freedom to do as I please with my free time - and I can only hope that is also true for all of you.

It may shock "normal" society to realize that those of us who lead solitary lives aren't necessarily psychopathic.

[dlbpharmd]

Sometimes I feel odd because I never talk about my father and I have not visited his grave once in the 10 years since he died. My mother (they had been divorced for 7 years when he died) and my wife took my kids to his grave when they started asking a lot of questions about who my father was. I just did not feel up to it, I have a lot of good memories of him from when I was a child, but he blew all those to hell during my adolescence, teens, and early 20's. The fact that I hardly ever think of him really confuses me at moments like now when I do.

I understand, SBG. My father died in 1972 when I was 2 years old, thus I have no memory of him and therefore never go to visit his grave. It upsets my mother that I don't visit the grave every year but I just don't feel the need to do so.