getting back

Remember in middle school when the phone was second only to your best friend because it was the vehicle on which the friendship thrived? Then, recall when mail in college was a once a weekly trek with breath held for a piece of communication from a actual distant friend? This was all, of course, before email really hit it big.

I've been neglectful lately, actually for awhile. I've left emails unanswered, not returned phone calls, and not written thank you notes promptly. I've been a recluse lately. It started in the fall with what I'd like to call "the Funk" (but there is no George Clinton in my house) and I shelled up in my home declining or avoiding invitations to see to outside world, converse with near friends or strangers, or even see a movie. Well, it sort of settled on me. I like the way it fits. And even though George Clinton came and took a good portion of "the Funk" away, I still am more inclined to avoid the outings and hole up like a scared little puppy.

I've been reading a book about two authors and their friendship through graduate school and beyond. One friend laments again and again of her fear of being alone and never finding love. She dreds and tries to repel lonliness. I don't identify with her. At all. I love my friends. I love my family, in fact, have just spent a weekend laughing so hard with them that my stomach muscles are sore, but I don't get the loneliness feeling. Sure, sometimes I get bored and sick of myself and when I see couples I get a little jealous, but overall, I kinda dig what I do each day. And the strange thing is that I have more of a problem with how this is percieved than really how I feel about it.

I need to get back into the fray, or at least everyone else thinks I need to. But, what if I just want to take a year off? I know I'm not getting younger, but what if I don't care? What is that is just fine with me? Who is going to stop me?