Reading other people's posts has made me think about so many things I normally would give little thought to- but I guess that is what blogging is all about.

I think I need to get my butt out of my house and make new friends. I have become somewhat of a recluse. My fellow Auxiliary members are more like work associates. We get along great and they seem to like me, but we do not visit each others homes or go places together. Those relationships feel more professional.

I joined the Red Hat Society hoping to make a few friends. I have tried exchanging phone numbers and email addresses, but most of them are too busy so that has dead-ended too.

My reclusiveness has been the subject of many sessions with my therapist. Maybe I just don't try hard enough, or maybe I am just too afraid. The two friendships that meant the most to me unraveled, one a year before my son died, and the other since.

K and I were friends for darn near three decades. She lived with me on and off for years at a time, and our sons were so close that they called us Mom One and Mom Too. K and her sons were always financial disasters, which is why she lived with me so much. Several times our friendship floundered, but it was usually because she did something stupid and not because I did anything wrong. She and her sons stopped having anything to do with me after Tod's wedding- and for the first time because of something I said. Over that thirty year period I gave them a place to live, cars (yes- cars- two of them in good operating condition!) hundreds of dollars and other things. To be cut off for one stupid (but honest) statement after all of the ugly and hateful things they did and said to me over the years hurt me terribly.

Seven months after Tod died, K wrote me a long letter telling me that I was a terrible parent and a worse friend, that I acted as if Tod was the only thing in the world that mattered, and that I did not care at all about my older son and my grandson.

I think I am a bit shell-shocked. It is not easy for me to trust people and being treated like that did not help matters.

So, now I need to master my fears and make new friends. I think I am reluctant to do so and make excuses because I am afraid of being hurt so deeply again.