By Beauty Damned

Therapy Session

Every morning on the train I scribble down my little thoughts into my little notebook. Thoughts about life. About myself or my family or something I saw on Oprah or something that happened that I thought was amusing. I've become so enamored with my ballpoint pen and my little book. When you're writing for yourself you can write about anything. Doesn't have to be interesting. Like...

I just went to take a sip of beer and a big droplet fell right through my lip onto my white sweatshorts. Hmmm. Gonna have to clean that off.

I wonder if I'll want to do the dishes more five minutes from now than I do at this time. Because at this time, I don't feel like doing them at all.

I walked with Jen through the Diamond District tonight. The weather cleared up just in time for us to leave work and take the walk to 6th Avenue. We stopped in almost every window on 47th between 5th and 6th to look at the sparkling diamonds and talk about the ones we liked and didn't like. Amidst the chaos of a spring night after-work in midtown Manhattan, we were hypnotized by all the sparkling jewels. Nothing else existed. We were cool.

Jen makes me laugh all the time. I love hanging out with her because she gets me and I get her. Sometimes when we talk we just have tears in our eyes from the start because we already know something funny is coming. Jen is an actor. But not the annoying kind who makes a big deal out of herself all the time. She's laid back. We've really bonded over the past couple of years. Which is about how long it takes to really feel like a person is a solid friend who you will never want to lose touch with.

When I got home I plopped down in my new chair to take my boots off. Rob came over and straddled me and threw all of the weight of his body onto me in a big, welcoming hug. It felt sooo good. I just laid there and breathed him and felt how great it is to fit with someone and to experience a moment of such utter peace.

It didn't last long of course, as it never does with me. I always have one foot on the warpath. I never really come all the way off of it. Some might see that as unfortunate. I see it as being true to self - and also slightly unfortunate. So I got mad at him about something right before he had to go run an errand I gave him the cold shoulder. Now I feel bad. I was mad about nothing. Just being a total nag. In fact, I think that Rob is the first person to ever coin the phrase "nagigation system" which is what he referred to me as one day when I was telling him how to drive. Don't forget that you heard it here first. And speaking of personal conflict...

I may have lost a friend - because of a culmination of events and feelings that have apparently been gaining velocity for months, maybe even years, which exploded yesterday into a confetti of hurtful words and irreconcilable differences. The reason I know these differences are likely irreconcilable is because it was a very small thing that set the ball into motion and it rolled down a very steep, slippery hill into a swamp of mutual disdain. In one way I think this friend of mine is very unhappy with her life and she's being a hater. I was really hurt by her reproach, but then again, maybe mine really sucked too. Maybe I am a bitch on wheels and there's no other explanation. But then I remember that she is an even bigger bitch on wheels, so it's really not a good idea to argue. We were friends as a result of circumstances that forced us together in one way. I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. I don't say forced because it was painful in the beginning, but only because we never would have bothered with a friendship had it not been that my boyfriend has known her and her husband for many, many years. We are totally incompatible as friends. The ways are too many to count. But I love her daughter and I love her family and I really, truly, love her. Is that crazy? I love her even though sometimes I don't like the things she do? That's family, right? I love her even though sometimes she act a fool? Yeah.

Maybe I deserved to be told the things that she told me. Maybe I have been judging her all this time and thinking that somehow I'm better than her. That if I were her, I would do things differently. Our interests have always been worlds apart. One of the few things we could share was a love of rap music, and even in that department, we had really different thoughts and feelings about it. Maybe I do think I'm smarter. Maybe I do think her interests and behavior are childish and not becoming to anyone. I felt like a victim yesterday when it all went down. Now I feel like my responsibility for what happened is equal to hers, only I express myself more articulately and I wasn't nearly as angry at her as it turned out she was at me. I tried to reason with her but she told me in so many words to fuck off.

It all started because I told her I don't want to get her annoying chain emails. I did it in a non-decorous manner - by posting a bulletin on myspace saying: People, please don't post bullshit on my page and p.s. grow the fuck up. I didn't name her, but she knew that she and another friend of mine (still) were the culprits and she immediately deleted me from her list of "myspace" friends. Does it sound high school enough? We are grown women. Which was a part of my point. I use myspace as a place to keep in touch with all of my real friends. People that I actually know in real life. People like her. But she uses is at as a forum to post juvenile bulletins and leave "chain comments" which usually involve a lot of ____o__O__ those and ^^^^^ those and fancy banners which drive me crazy. I just wanted it to stop. I should have found a better way to say it, but I also feel like no matter how I said it she would have taken it the wrong way, since she reacted with a great deal of hostility to my "request." The emails that ensued consisted of her telling me that I'm a jerk, and me expressing surprise and disgust at her irrational inability to hear my honest feelings about the subject when I thought we were like family. There's nothing like having someone who you thought liked you make it clear that for a long time they've been thinking about how much they actually don't like you, and saying the wrong thing can be like sticking a pin inside a balloon and watching all of the air come hissing out. I've always thought of her as a sister-in-law who I had to love, even though I didn't always like her either (though there were plenty of times when I genuinely did). She certainly seemed to feel clearly about the latter. She told me that I "always have an attitude" and that I am "difficult to please in groups." I wanted to respond, to defend myself, but at that point I gave up. I realized that trying to understand what specifically she was referring to and trying to explain that I've never met anyone who had a worse attitude than her or more difficulty adjusting to different settings and people than her, would probably just end in her being even angrier and me not feeling a lot better. So I let it go. I didn't respond and even though I want to, I am holding back because I know it's all ego. When it all burns out I just feel sorry that I hurt her feelings and sorry that she's having a hard time right now and I just made it worse, and also pissed off that she's being so retarded about the whole thing and she can't just cop to that. I'm hurt that she says she doesn't want to be my friend anymore. Maybe I am fucking stuck up even if I never think of myself that way. And maybe I never should have posted that harsh bulletin.

I didn't think it was an unforgivable sin for me to throw a tantrum about the spam-like shit that she posts on an incessant basis. I guess we're even. Maybe one day we'll get over it when enough time has passed that we are able to forget why we are angry or all the things that we dislike about eachother. But right now it's looking like the last nail was just hammered into the coffin of the friendship that we always tried so hard to pretend we had. Thank god Rob took my side in the whole fiasco. Much of the time he'll tell me I'm getting too worked up, but in this case he agreed with me, which was very welcome support.

When I came home last night I had a letter from Kathleen. It's always exciting to get something in the mail from her, almost more so because she lives so close by and she never HAS to write if she doesn't want to. But she did. She wrote me a beautiful letter about how much she loves me and how glad she is that we've been friends for all these years and still have all the same wonderful things in common and much, much more. She enclosed an article that was written about her father, Howard, in the Ashland tribune 10 years ago, just shortly after she and I had met. Now that he's gone that article meant so much to read. It told what an amazing person he was.

It was then that I let out a huge sigh of relief - that I do have real friends who love me despite all of the flaws that they've seen revealed a hundred times, despite the arguments that we've had and the times when we've thought the other is out of line, we still have a bond that is unbreakable. I felt so much relief that Kathleen is my best friend and that we are here for eachother, in New York, thousands of miles from where we first met, and that she will never, ever post a comment to me that isn't FOR me or that I'm supposed to forward to 20 people or else. True friends are where it's at. Unconditional. That's family.

Posted by Maria at June 8, 2006 09:19 PM | TrackBack