Cardboard Cut-Out

I'm confused by my predicament. I want to be honest in how I feel, but sometimes honesty is met by other people who seem to want to insist that you deny how you really feel. I feel cut out. A bit like a cardboard cut-out of a character, who can look at home in any one of a hundred different pieces of scenery, but who doesn't actually belong in any of them. That is how I feel this morning.

I don't think facebook is really helping with that - thing is, I can see all the people who I used to be connected with, and I can see them all interacting with all the other people that I used to be connected with, but I'm not in that. All these conversations that would otherwise be private are now open for all to see. Everybody in my contact list in facebook lives far far away from me, and so I feel almost legitimate in my use of the thing... although, I could send emails or texts or phone people or (gasp) write letters.

It just seems so superficial. I don't want to be a superficial person. I want to know who you are, what makes you tick, what makes you happy or sad, I want to get to know you. I want to keep in touch, to know where you're up to, to know how you're doing. I keep thinking about all these people who I never really got to know, despite knowing them for years, and am ashamed of my superficiality. Getting involved in a hundred different things shouldn't replace real relationships with people. It should aid relationship building, not replace it.

We went to our cell meeting again last night, and spent all evening fielding questions about who we were and where we're from and why we've moved to the South. Next week we'll start finding out more about the people who were asking all the questions... I don't want to be a cardboard cut-out here. I want to belong, to become part of the picture, to become interwoven into the life of my Family.