saying goodbye

One more post for the day (on a roll, huh?)

Recently I left a group I have been in for years. I got to the point that seeing interactions/non-interactions was a negative experience to me. Let me emphasize: to me. It's all about my perception and what I could handle. Individually, they are fantastic women. Even as a group, just wonderful. But the particular dynamics weren't something I could handle in my life at this point.

I didn't want to leave in a huff of drama, like I have seen others leave email loops. The melodramatic good-bye posts are often really a ploy to get others to beg them to stay. So I just quietly left, figuring nobody would notice/comment for awhile.

What was there to say? No matter how I say it, it would seem like an accusation. Ya'll aren't meeting my needs at this point and I would like to move on instead of trying to live in the past and recapture the golden years. But that reads wrong, since (as the old break-up line says) its not you (all), it's me. It's my lack of the social ins and outs that other women seem to have. It's my fear of asking for help while intensily longing to have very close connections. I don't expect anybody else to meet my needs as I often don't even know what my needs are.

I just wanted to leave while leaving was a strength for me. While I was doing it for the right reasons, to decrease the negative feelings I have. The only problem, is because I have seperated myself so quietly, and I already have a habit of not reaching out, I fear that I have cut myself out of their lives completely rather than just this aspect of it. And par for the course, I don't know how to fix it.

Why a blog?

Who am I to think that my thoughts are worthy to be published on the web? As though I have anything important to say. I don't know. Maybe I just need an outlet for all of my thoughts. As someone who doesn't get to personal, who has a hard time sharing her inner thoughts with other people, this is a great, semi-anonymous way of getting things out.

No apologies here. No weighing the reactions of others first. Because initially (at least until this journal pops up in some search...) this is just between me and the screen. I can delete it all by clicking a button, hide, edit, do whatever. But until then, it's just my personal thoughts. An outlet for someone who doesn't get many chances to just vent or muse without worrying how someone will react.