finishing up "what I hate is"

I can freeze up whether it's some small, imagined or minor altercation with a neighbor I hardly know, or whether it's a close friend or family member. I guess the degree and intensity of the freeze is probably proportional to how important the relationship feels, although it might not be - sometimes it seems to have more to do with how 'empty my tank is' at that moment than anything else.

I've noticed that when I have somebody in my life that I feel close to, all this stuff feels less fraught (I know I've said that before, repeating myself) because - well, because there's somebody to talk to. Somebody to connect the dots together, somebody to help life feel less fragmented and isolated. Somebody to make sense of it all with. So it doesn't seem like this endless series of random, meaningless and unconnected events...