Cut out my diet, caffeine-free soda to see if it would lessen my heartburn. Not sure if it has or not, but I was wrong in saying I don’t miss the stuff. After eating I wanted to go to Niagara Falls, turn it into soda, and just stand under it with my mouth open, guzzling it by the gallons.

Last night I felt a bit overwhelmed, but not to the point where I broke down in tears. Except for the wisdom and maturity we acquire with age, aging really does suck. Earaches, obesity, heartburn, fatigue, lightheadedness, shitty vision, anxiety, ingrown/fungal nails, joint stiffness, perimenopause, high cholesterol, Hashimoto’s…

For the longest time, I’ve hated people in general. I still do for the most part. I think that most people are phony, out to serve themselves, and not very intelligent. I know I’m not perfect myself and that we all tend to be a little selfish in some ways. Even if we don’t realize it, I think we all want to benefit in some way from our relationships, whether they’re intimate or not. Of course I would rather be friends with Stacey than my neighbor. Stacey and I have shared an awful lot about each other in just the eight sessions we had together and we formed a bit of a bond in the end. So naturally, I would want to be friends with someone I felt more connected to, relaxed with, and who really understood me.

Lately, I find myself wishing that I was around more people more often, but just like you can’t force love, you can’t force friendships either. At least I never could. Anyone I’ve ever come to care about, whether I was attracted to them or not, was totally unplanned and accidental.

As Tom and I were discussing last night and as I totally agree, I have become way more critical and less tolerant with age. I totally admit it. Fortunately, I’m usually good at recognizing my faults. I’m just not always as good at changing them.

When I was younger I put up with a lot more shit from people that I would never put up with now. I’d never be friends with the likes of Kevin “Nervous” or Fran. But to me, friendships were sacred and worth doing whatever you had to do to hang onto them. The older me feels that while all relationships of any kind may need some work, if you have to work that hard, then you’re probably with the wrong person. Again, intimate or not, too many disagreements and compromises usually equal a bad match.

The question is where do you draw the line? Yes, I need to be less critical and more accepting, but unless it’s something really big and really obvious, there seems to be a fine line between what most would consider being intolerant versus what most would consider being too tolerant.

I realize that this is a subjective matter. We all have different definitions of what healthy relationships are versus toxic relationships. Hell, many people consider getting their asses beat as “healthy,” but lay one finger on me and you’re dead and then I’ll dump you. So some things would be obvious as far as where to draw the line, but others I’m not so sure about.

Alison decided to draw the line with my criticism, which in my mind was being totally upfront and honest, something I thought people wanted in a friendship.

Paula decided to draw the line when I tried to explain to her why staying here for two weeks would be a bit long for everybody, thinking what I was really saying was that I didn’t want to see her at all.

Maliheh dumped me after she was confident that I wouldn’t use her name in a story.

Andy said he was “just being honest,” when I let him know I’d had enough of his judgmental, arrogant ways and his “cloning.” Meaning that he automatically assumed I felt/thought the same way he did about almost everything.

I have cut ties with many people over the years and they have cut ties with me as well. In both cases, I’m sure that many unbiased people who could look at the situation objectively would say that sometimes I deserved to be dumped and other times I truly didn’t. But was I wrong to dump Nane for being a hypocrite or should I just have “tolerated” it and told myself that that was simply how she was? Well, maybe if she were a coworker I had to see almost every day, a little more tolerance would have been in order. But for a woman in Germany that I never met and never would meet, was hanging onto her really worth it?

So again, just where do I draw the line? Some things are obvious and other things I’m just not sure. I suppose the smart thing to do would be not to ask myself what I thought most others would do in a certain situation, and just go with my own gut instinct.

As horrible and as unfair as jail was, and as miserable as I felt both physically and emotionally, I did like the structure, routine, and meeting different people, even if a lot of them were fucked up and I felt smothered most of the time. Even the most social of people need space and privacy every now and then. Well, you’ll almost never get this in jail. I think what I liked best about meeting so many different people (particularly the DOs) were all the story ideas they inspired. Someone like my mother would have said, “What was the point? You didn’t gain anything from your stupid stories.”

No, I didn’t. They had no monetary value whatsoever. But I did gain the enjoyment of writing them. I was raised to believe most things should be done for profit, and while I love money the same as the next gal, sometimes I just like to have fun. Like Tom even said, money isn’t everything.

Will I ever again be around people regularly? Probably not. I don’t intend to ever go back to jail and I can’t see myself ever living in a nursing home, so unless one of the Staceys of the world surprises me (and there would be fewer Staceys if I could just get healthier, less anxious, and not need to see so many doctors), I doubt I’ll ever be that sociable. But as I also told Tom, that in itself has some good in it. Everything has its pros and cons. I guess it’s just a matter of what set of pros and cons you prefer, not that everyone has a choice. Tom has no choice but to associate with his coworkers because he has to have a job and he has to work.