Real quick P.S. to that post: While H was gone, I had to ask him about making arrangements for pet care while I visit my sick grandfather in a month. He’s back today and will be able to care for them for most of the time I’m away, which is a relief. He also did ask about my grandpa, and we had a short exchange about how he’s doing. It feels so so weird, like it could be any friend asking about him in a concerned but detached way, not my H who knew my grandpa for over a decade. They were fond of each other for sure.
Anyway, so it’s just hitting me again how much intimacy is gone, how surface our interactions are, and how with no effort to change that on either of our parts we will grow more distant and our exchanges more superficial, and... I guess that is true of any friendship or R.
I’m engaging on a surface level because I don’t think H has been or is in a place to engage beyond that. But what if I’m wrong? What if I never do my part to make space for more? He mentioned his grandpa dealing with dementia years ago, and I wanted to say, I know, I was there, I remember how hard it was.
I’m partly engaging in a surface level because that intimacy did go away at BD when he betrayed my trust. I can’t rebuild that on my own—he would have to want to work at an R and at rebuilding that.
Do I just sail through another few months or a year of surface level, acquaintance type convos? Or at some point do I make the effort to have more “real” human exchanges with him, even if as friends? To just say in this case, it feels so strange to be talking with you about my grandpa as if you didn’t know him for so long too.
I guess I’m feeling inauthentic again. Feeling like I’m partly staying super surface because I don’t want to be vulnerable.
