still not very good at this
For the first time in who knows how long, we had a bunch of friends over for for what you might call a party. An evening of food, beverages, and, as is often the case with this group of people, Rock Band. As I type this, things have wound down, the guests have left, and the clean-up is largely done (yeah, it’s early…we’re old.). I think things went well. Everyone seemed to have a good time. I hope they did. That said, I’m wrestling a bit with that voice inside my head that keeps saying “bah, they were just humoring you, and are spending their drive home laughing at you and your pathetic attempts at hosting an entertaining evening!” Not that I realistically think or would ever believe for a minute that my great friends would actually be like that, but that voice, that little gremlin of self doubt, is forever there taunting me, because there’s just enough of a certain kind of unpleasantness in my past to feed it.
I really wanna strangle that voice.
Why? because that voice really makes it difficult to simply loosen up and enjoy the time with friends whose company is really wonderful and pleasant. Seriously, damn all those times in the past when people treated me exactly that way, and left me broken enough to forever hold, however small, the expectation that things are going to eventually go south; that no matter how unambiguously great things are, the other shoe’s eventually going to drop. It’s a truly crappy thing to have to deal with.
In any case, I’m going to try not to listen, because that’s what you do. Doesn’t always make it easy.
