Open, Closed

From the time my son was very young, a steady stream of friends would come over to our house, and he had an abundance of playmates. Several of his friends 'parents became good friends of ours. Every year, from the time Nicholas was two, we had a large Birthday party for him and my husband, whose Birthday is only four days apart from my son's. We had friends over for dinners, barbecues, we would go over to their house, it was a fun, normal social calendar. When my husband turned sixty 3 years ago, he decided he no longer wanted a party. When my son turned 16 four years ago, he just wanted to invite his friends, and no longer wished to celebrate his Birthday together with his dad's. About the same time, my 44 year old sister died, and my father died of complications of Alzheimer's disease, and my alcoholic mother died a few months later. Somehow, that made me agree all too readily to reduce our social life. And our world shrank. It closed. I am trying very hard to open it up again, but my husband is very reclusive socially, and my son just goes to his friends' houses if he wants to see them. It makes for a tough job, as I am still feeling the scars of isolation I hid in to recover from all the family trauma. Open. Closed. I sure preferred our world open. I do not think most people with a gregarious life style are aware that their world is open, versus people whose world is closed. And it becomes a challenge on an almost hypnotic level, to try to break through that closed door. It is at this point a difficult task, and one that makes me grateful for social networking, as I seem to have gotten the hang of at least that part. It is also I know a challenge to overcome a hesitation to start over, as my trust was so violated by my mother, and it left me with a very bruised sense of self. That is fading, and I do find strength in my writing, as it allows me to share and hopefully bring some insight and perspective and inspiration to my readers. My husband is completely content with the closed door sign on our social life, so I am not getting much encouragement from him. I wanted so much to include him in my insight, but to no avail. It just is not important to him. So, after the fall from grace, I am dusting myself off, and starting over, and we will see where it leads. My mind is open to new connections, let's see if my door will follow suit.