I'm writing this while on hold with maintenance...

So, I was watching this TEDTalk about social networks, and something he said really resonated with me. Happy people tend to "cluster" with other happy people and sad with sad, and so on. While this is no big revelation, it (and the entire talk in general, really) made me realize that I take my role in my circles of friends very seriously. I've felt for many years now that it is my duty in life to brighten the lives of my friends and the people around me - ever since a good friend from high school remarked during a visit home from college that "life is so much more BORING here without you!" I naturally try to be the life of the party anyway, but sometimes that presents very peculiarly, especially when I am NOT happy at all.

(I'm going to be candid here. Watch out.)

The last couple of weeks have been impossibly hard for me. Between the process of moving, which has been very psychologically difficult for me, and the fact that my parents are indeed splitting up, and worse, that my father, who used to be one of my best friends, is now openly cheating on my mother with some whore of a woman he met overseas where he works. And wants to marry her CONCURRENTLY with my mother, despite the fact that NOWHERE in the Bible does it say - although he'll argue this - that men are now allowed to have more than one wife at a time... I've been under a lot of stress. Particularly with this news about my family, as my mom called me last Saturday (a week before Moving Day) sobbing and told me I needed to come home, upon which I called my father to ask him what he had done and he dropped the Girlfriend Bombshell on me.

Needless to say, this upset me. I haven't cried this hard since I found out that The Ex had spent exactly TWO weeks alone after our breakup and then started sleeping with someone else, and that he had lied to me about it. My dad KNEW about that trauma, and still made the decisions he made. It was similar enough to The Ex's betrayal that I just couldn't take it. So my father and I are not speaking for the first time EVER, I have de-friended/de-family'ed him on facebook, I just moved 500 miles away from everyone I'm close to, and I still have no job. Needless to say, putting on a happy face WOULD be difficult for anyone.

However, I have so trained myself to smile for the cameras, as it were, that very few people noticed that anything was wrong. I refuse to believe that 98% of my friends are that obtuse, so it must be that I'm a really good actress (JOB OPPORTUNITY!). However, now I'm left wondering if this is instinctual/genetic/whatever, or if this is just a defense mechanism or personality disorder or something. Don't get me wrong, I love being the life of the party, and I am naturally a cheerful optimist, but this level of masking is starting to concern me... I know I can be open with my closest friends, and I am, but I'm horribly insecure about the amount of openness - if I complain TOO much or seek TOO much sympathy, will they stop wanting to be around me? [Liz, I know you're reading this, and I know that you wouldn't, but the insecurity is still there. Your love means a lot to me, though :) ]



SIDE NOTE: I was on hold for 13 minutes. Finally got a maintenance request in. Yay!