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The weather isn't fair right now
May. 30th, 2010 04:56 amSometimes it takes a crisis to make you re-evaluate a friendship...
I think I'm grieving. For 24 years I've known a woman - when her father died, I was there, listening as she talked through her feelings and being there to support her through the paperwork and the changes in her mother's living arrangement, spending hours on the phone or in person. Heck, one of my strongest memories of that time is of sitting on her bed in her bedroom, holding out my hand as she sorted through her father's ashes to remove all the weird tags and things, staring down at my palm with the dust of her father's ashes on it and the staples, tags and other bits piling up.
When her marriages broke up, again, she needed me and I was there. And the same when her mother was diagnosed with a terrifying cancer. And now, when her life is a hodge-podge of new experiences, we get together once every few weeks for long lunches and she tells me all about herself.
But when Bossman went down, there was nothing. She hasn't contacted me since she spoke to me while I was in the waiting room (she'd just returned to cell-phone ability from the wilds of 'living off the grid' and was calling to see if I wanted to get together)... anyway. Nothing - I tell her my news, she replies, giggling, that she has all sorts of things to share with me about the fun she's been having, and let's do lunch - and then... the call is overed and there's been nothing since. She hasn't called to ask if he's off the ventilator, even if he's alive. So many people have sent messages and comments of suport, things that have sustained me through the long hours, that her silence is shows as a hole in that brightness. And my disappointment has made me look back over our long association to realise that in every crisis of my life, when I needed a friend to be there, she absented herself.
I'm not sure how I'd describe this long, long association of ours but I fear that 'friendship' isn't the right descriptor. All these years, I've found reasons and excuses for her needing my support but never offering her own and now, well, I think my well of understanding has gone dry. I'm seeing her as my family and other friends do - as the driver of an "all about me" bus that I subbornly used to ride on. And I believe that this is now my stop.
People can only give what they can, I know that. And we all have limitations. But the rosy belief that she is a true friend, well, I fear that is gone forever. And for that loss of belief, I grieve.
I think I'm grieving. For 24 years I've known a woman - when her father died, I was there, listening as she talked through her feelings and being there to support her through the paperwork and the changes in her mother's living arrangement, spending hours on the phone or in person. Heck, one of my strongest memories of that time is of sitting on her bed in her bedroom, holding out my hand as she sorted through her father's ashes to remove all the weird tags and things, staring down at my palm with the dust of her father's ashes on it and the staples, tags and other bits piling up.
When her marriages broke up, again, she needed me and I was there. And the same when her mother was diagnosed with a terrifying cancer. And now, when her life is a hodge-podge of new experiences, we get together once every few weeks for long lunches and she tells me all about herself.
But when Bossman went down, there was nothing. She hasn't contacted me since she spoke to me while I was in the waiting room (she'd just returned to cell-phone ability from the wilds of 'living off the grid' and was calling to see if I wanted to get together)... anyway. Nothing - I tell her my news, she replies, giggling, that she has all sorts of things to share with me about the fun she's been having, and let's do lunch - and then... the call is overed and there's been nothing since. She hasn't called to ask if he's off the ventilator, even if he's alive. So many people have sent messages and comments of suport, things that have sustained me through the long hours, that her silence is shows as a hole in that brightness. And my disappointment has made me look back over our long association to realise that in every crisis of my life, when I needed a friend to be there, she absented herself.
I'm not sure how I'd describe this long, long association of ours but I fear that 'friendship' isn't the right descriptor. All these years, I've found reasons and excuses for her needing my support but never offering her own and now, well, I think my well of understanding has gone dry. I'm seeing her as my family and other friends do - as the driver of an "all about me" bus that I subbornly used to ride on. And I believe that this is now my stop.
People can only give what they can, I know that. And we all have limitations. But the rosy belief that she is a true friend, well, I fear that is gone forever. And for that loss of belief, I grieve.
