Weighing Your Options

Recently, a number of old friends and other acquaintances who have drifted away over time, have come back into my life. It has been fun and interesting to see each of them, especially since most are attractive women whose reappearance seemed to be correlated with the departure of my most recent girlfriend. There are now many opportunities to fill the space left by her absence. I don't, however, have a lot of money right now, and just getting through the summer is a significant goal, and that tends to slow things down somewhat, but that's a whole other story.

I have found myself saying, "Hey, I'd like to get together with ____ , that would be fun." and it would be, but then realized that there's something else I really would rather do more or would just like to keep that time for myself. At times like that, I'm really glad that I tend to move more slowly than most other people.

Much of life is about making choices, we always have options- decisions to make. Some people I really, really do want to see whenever that's a possibility, others I like seeing now and then, some I prefer limiting our interactions to professional matters, and some, when I really stop and think about it, know that it's better if they remain as part of my past, no matter how alluring, available or tempting they may be in a moment of weakness.

Fortunately most of my friends have lots of social options. It's a little depressing to think of those who don't, but they are either individuals who want things that way or are the ones who tend to be overly dependent. I am no longer very tolerant of that latter way of being. It is sad, and I'm not without some compassion, but that is their life lesson to learn and work through, not yours or mine. Sacrificing one's life for your children or certain other individuals in a genuine emergency is one thing and would be done without hesitation by many of us, but displacing your life and what you need to do, on an ongoing basis, just because another person is bored or has no imagination is no way to live. Been there and done that. Being The Giving Tree is not very rewarding, unless it is your desire to be left as a stump, with all that you were or could have been, cut away and lost, perhaps forever. Most of us are fortunately, pretty resilient and that means that new branches will grow even when we've given away far too much in the past.

We all need to take care of and nurture ourselves, so that we CAN help others and be of value to the world. If we neglect our own needs for too long or too often, we will simply wither away and won't be able to help anyone.