Fishbowl Blues

As I scan the Facebook postings every morning, and IMsL approaches, I can't help but feel my loneliness more acutely.

I see the photos, the cute giggly comments, the Leatherwomen all in their finest, and I'd love to be closer to that, but my nose keeps bumping against this annoying fishbowl that I'm looking out of.

It's not that I'm missing out on the party so much. 

I keep hearing about "the family", and knowing that I will likely never be a part of that -- yeah, it stings.

If anyone reads this blog, I suppose it sounds like whining, but as I said in an earlier post -- my journey, my whining.

I can't go to every Leather event. For many reasons, most of them personal. I have a family and a job and must prioritize my travel to local bootblacking events. At the same time, I don't begrudge people who ARE able to travel. I think it's great, I really do.

But I am lonely. There, I said it.

I have no one to talk to, to really open up to, about what I feel about bootblacking: my joys, my frustrations, my anxieties. All I have is this blog. But even here I am not free to be really open with my thoughts. Because frankly, some of my thoughts are probably wrong or skewed and I have no way of countering them without another human being listening. 

I get to serve as a Bootblack maybe once a month if I'm lucky. I bring my kit, I set up, I wait for customers, and I serve them with every bit of passion and knowledge that I have. Afterward I thank the person running the event for inviting me, and go home. 

There is just something about belonging to a group of people who do what you do, and we can talk about it and nod our heads and say "yeah, this happened to me, and here's what I did..." And then you learn something and you have grown a bit.

Isolation is not a healthy thing. But there is not much I can do about it, except acknowledge it, do my work the best that I can, and trust that the Universe will provide in its own time.