Where did the rug go?

If you read the title of this article, what would you think it was about?

When I was a kid, I struggled to understand figurative language, such as idioms, similes and metaphors. If you would’ve asked me to define “pulling the rug out from under someone”, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.

And now I’ve lived it. Repeatedly for my entire adult life.

When I graduated high school, I had severed connections with several of the people I called my friends back then, because I was pretty socially inept but not inept enough to miss that these people didn’t really care that much about me.

And so, when I went to college, desperate for new beginnings and connections, I clung onto anyone who wouldn’t shake me off their leg. I tried so much to make and keep friends by hosting game nights in the dorm and inviting people over whenever I could.

Over the course of the next five years, every time a new rug would start to grow under me, when it was just big enough to actually bear weight on, it’d get ripped out, and I’d be left scrambling once again.

Of course, this wasn’t always my or their fault. People graduated, got jobs, moved on with their life. College is a long steady transition period for most people. But it also provided some stability. I knew every corner of campus. I knew all the great things and all the not so great things about the university. And by the end of college, I knew the town and its people very well, even if it wasn’t always the same people I was friends with.

And just when I’d gotten back on my feet again came an even bigger transition. I left behind the state I grew up in, the region even, for a city 16 hours away, where I had to build every connection. And I built some connections in Philadelphia, but it never really felt like home. So I decided to do the whole moving thing all over again.

Now, I’m home. I’m in a city I love, with people I love nearby. But I still feel raw. I’ve made some connections, but making connections is hard for me. And recently I’ve hung up my stick bag. Percussion, the one thing that provided stability to me through graduating high school, going into college and getting my degree, then moving to Philadelphia, is gone now too, due to a lack of time to commit to teaching plus tennis elbow in both arms.

I have loose connections with a select few friends from Missouri, although a lot of them have spread their wings and moved to new places too. I’m trying so hard to make and keep friends here in Pittsburgh but socializing especially as an adult is hard. I just feel alone. Which I know I’m not. But I’ve had to pull my roots out from the ground so many times, or get the rug pulled out from me so many times, that my roots are shallow and it’s hard to form deep bonds with people, worrying about the next time I’ll have to uproot.