Don't Worry if I'm shy

There are times when I wished I had a friend, not just a see you later kind of friend; a wish you happiness kind of friend.
At my present age, I don’t want to be the one to say that I don’t have any true, caring friends. Having become connected with the Mental Health System, and after 25 years, having employment which is meaningful, my level of trust just isn’t what it used to be when I was ‘using’ illicit drugs and drinking all of which caused the maladies of the mind of which I lived with for many years. Yet a friend whose eyes smile while I pray, I have yet to understand. I know many people. By sight and sound and habit, I have many associations, yet someone who can tell me the world is bright, I wish for; trust is not only a companion, but a question in the mind of many, whom have crossed the borders reality and fancy.
When you become a part of the Mental Health System, your friendships change. Don’t let this perturb you, or worry you when you seem under the weather and you’re in need of someone to relate with. You learn from not only your clinician, or case manager that there is always someone there waiting with you, whether in spirit or reality, and there is no reason to give up hope when things are not looking brightly about you.
It took me a while to face this reality of having no one about me with peace or with a trusting nature simply because I had to learn to undo the ignorant ways I lived around others before I found help with Mental Health. At my current age, 55, I am not as trusting as I can be of others having lived not so good a life, yet I become better as I find new associations and keep the foolishness at a distant, I have to understand life is not a balloon ride on a string, it is belief in what you understand, hope in what you see and faith to keep the bonding of reality with love.
Someone that is an acquaintance and neighbor came to my door right after the fourth of July, asking me to take his check for the amount of the check, give him the money from my wallet and take the check to my bank the next day and deposit it in my account. He has always been a kind of smiling guy with seemingly a good heart, yet for some reason when I told him I could not do it, and would not do it, he became angry. I thought he was kind person, now I understand I was just someone who had cash in my pocket. There are others who live in the neighborhood who call me foolish for wanting to reach out and become more responsible instead of living month to month on a check for disability. They were once my friends who now say that I think other than about myself, because I am working, paying my own way and developing a completely different response to living.
“Know the truth,
And you will believe.”

Donald G Sammons
July 5, 2010