normal is difficult

Sitting in a bar in one of those moments where I have absolutely nothing to say to the person across from me, a thought popped into my head.

Through much of college and the early years of my life in DC — including and especially my last job — I dealt so much with dysfunctional, damaged people. People who needed more than they could return. People you constantly had to be there for, totally sacrificing yourself. People who had to hear that certain something from you or they would just break down.

Those are very tiring people. In fact, I’ve become less tolerant of them. I’m not very proud of that. It wasn’t intentional, but I just ‘saved’ one too many people, one too many times. And suddenly, while I would do my best to be supportive in any given moment, afterwards I was hard-pressed to follow through. From vast experience, I was an expert at knowing what such a person needed to feel stable, but it just wasn’t in me any more to try and save someone.

But life changes. I generally work alone, now. And the scope of friends I come into regular contact with has greatly increased. Either by divine intervention, luck, or just inevitable odds, I seem to be surrounded by ‘healthier’ people, who don’t constantly ‘need’. And I’m not really sure how to handle it any more. When did I forget how to just sit back and talk with someone; someone who didn’t need to hear all the right words?

I don’t want to be constantly supportive at the cost of my own life. It’s fucking exhausting. And in my head I have constant ideas, and desires, and plans. But … I don’t know any more how to talk about them to… a normal person.