Mis Amigos

I know I'm just setting myself up here, because writing a blog about one's friends (unless it's a wonderfully glowing positive blog), is basically just one terrific way to stir up a shit storm.  That's wonderful if you happen to like fecal matter, not so good if you don't. However, this is the only place I can work out the whirlwind in my head, and figure out exactly where my thoughts lie.

I have a wonderful group of close-knit friends, who are like family to me. I really am blessed by them. But not a one of them truly get me, and I don't know if any of them really care to try.

One has a wonderful, shining image of me that I don't really fit. When he encounters a piece of knowledge about me that he finds unpleasant and doesn't fit the picture in his head, instead of trying to work it in to the puzzle, he simply throws the piece away. Therefore, I remain an untarnished, occasionally perplexing icon.

Another can't get past that our viewpoints on certain issues are radically different and diametrically opposed.  I try to avoid those issues, because I really do value our relationship and I fear the impact of a frank discussion would cause a rift that would be long to heal.

 There are times though that I really get my toes stepped on. Recently I was caught off guard, and had to reduce a topic I feel very passionate about into just one or two key points. The response I got pretty much let me know they hold my very dear beliefs repulsive, repugnant and disgusting.... which I guess that means I am too. They enjoy my company, my personality, but they don't like ME.

It really is a shame, because I love her and enjoy her company, but I can rarely relate anything personal about myself without being dumped upon by the Righteous Bucket O' Judgment, and usually reduced to tears.

One friend is quite similar to me in attitude and beliefs, and appears to enjoy my company. I really think this person could get who I am.  However, this person is very private, and holds little interest in people in general. I could relate any amount of information I want, but receive little information in return. He would be sad if he knew I were upset about something, but in the inner workings of people seem to be rather enigmatic to him, so it wouldn't make a lasting impression.

So basically, when I reveal the real raw me to the people I hold most dear, it is either disregarded, scathingly judged, or has all the impact of a stone skipping upon water.

It rather frustrating, to put it mildly. This past year has revealed to me there is a chasm that runs deep between me and everyone else. And it is filled to the brim with loneliness. I just don't know what to make of it, or why I bother trying.

With that last sentence in mind, it reminds me of two others, whom I know through work. We all relate well to each other and I'd love to consider us all friends. I enjoy their company, and they seem to enjoy mine. But I have these little niggling doubts. I wonder if it's only my perception that we're nearly-friends, or if they're just humoring me.  I never know quite where I stand with either one. 

It would hurt my feelings more to find that someone was just humoring me and tolerating my company, than to be just out-right disliked. Period.

I don't know that my writing this helped me to come to any sort of conclusion regarding anything. But it did serve the purpose of helping me gather all these whirling feelings and thoughts and place them firmly under a mental paperweight. Which at this point, I'll take what I can get.

Waking up with old friends on my mind

Johnny (not his real name) and I met in high school. I don't even recall the exact circumstances anymore, but it had to have been through the hours we whiled away in the computer lab, just hanging out.  At some point, we became fast friends.

We shared a passion for the paranormal, and exchanged our thoughts and emotions with all the fervor of youth.  I felt I had found a brother in him, and he a sister in me.  We rough housed in the hallways during school, and we talked for hours on the phone after.

I can't even begin to explain the fierce, protective love I had for my "little brother". It would take hours for me to tell you of the good times we had, the emotional bonds we shared.

After I graduated, and went off to college, we kept in touch by phone and occasional visits. But little by little, the inevitable happened, and he slipped away.  I didn't hear a word from him at all for a year. Perhaps two.  Then, he just reappeared. Bursts of phone calls and keeping in touch. I had gotten married by this time and he spent many weekends hanging out with the Hubs and I.

Questions about his time away were met with vague answers, and I eventually learned not to ask at all.  Just to appreciate his friendship and company once more, and to let whatever hidden history he had to be just that.  After a while, he disappeared just as suddenly as he appeared. 

So began a cycle he's contined over the years. Disappear, reappear. Lather, rinse, repeat.  At one point, he had moved to a bigger town about an hour away and invited the Hubs and I to come up and visit him at a club his significant other worked at.  I watched with hidden anger as his SO basically treated him like a servant all evening.  He introduced us to his strange new friends.

I watched via MySpace as he posted pics where he grew increasingly glassy-eyed and thinner.  I pored over his new sister-friend's page, where artistic, gothy and fun photos of her sporting black hair and red lipstick, alternated with photos of the end results of her cutting herself.  I wondered what she had over me, and watched him slip away, yet again.

He would make plans to visit, and never show. Sometimes he would call a day or two later with a flimsy excuse. Sometimes, he wouldn't call at all. I tried to quit him, but it would only last until his next reappearance. When you have my friendship, it is fierce, and it is for life.  Sometimes, like this time, it is to my downfall. I love my "little brother" still, but have no faith left in him.  The last time he announced an upcoming visit, I didn't even bother to change my schedule. 

I later found that Johnny kept in contact with a mutual friend of ours during his disappearing spells.  Matt (not his real name, either) filled me in with the sparse details he'd been given.  Adding up what we both know still does not equal the amount of effort Johnny had put into being vague and secretive.  I really don't see what's the point.

It's sort of the life equivilent of someone spending years trying to hide their feet from everyone, only later to find that the person has six toes. Whoop de shit.

I wonder sometimes what I am to him. Someone he used to know? Someone he outgrew? A small town hick who'd never understand the complicated things he's going through?  He'd be surprised. Sometimes I wonder if those years were a lie. Did he mean more to me, than I to him?

I watch and wonder where the future will take him. He may overdose and I will find myself at his funeral in a few years.  He may reappear for good when we're in our 50s or 60s, explain his crazy years, and us remain fast friends as old age doth approacheth.  Both outcomes are equally likely. The truth is somewhere in between.

Hot Mess Mommy

"How has motherhood made you a misfit? Have you found that parenthood has made it easier or more difficult to make friends? Do you rebel against the cliches of modern motherhood or embrace them? How have you changed?"

Those were the questions posed recently on a blog I follow. They're definitely food for thought.

You know, as far as being a misfit goes, I've always been that. Now I'm just a misfit with children. Sometimes that makes it easier to make friends. Sometimes, that makes it harder.

Having children is definitely an icebreaker, and opens doors for you in some ways. If you see a person with children, you know you're in the same boat. Theirs may be a yacht, and yours a dinghy. But nevertheless, you're both navigating the tricky ocean of parenthood. Instead of say, driving a car. On an established road.

If it weren't for my daughter, I would never have attended storyhour at the library. I wouldn't have made friends with other new mommies, and found myself as part of a playgroup. However, these women, as nice and friendly as they are, only see a facet of myself.

Don't get me wrong, I'm genuine with them.... I'm just not my "whole" self. These women have their lives together. They make potty charts for their children. Shuffle them off to Gymboree, preschool soccer, all sorts of organized activities. They have mommy hairstyles. They get the perils and pitfalls of motherhood, but they do it with class and style.

I'm a hot mess of a mommy. My kids are perpetually crusty faced and messy haired. I wear T-shirts and jeans insteads of blouses and khakis. I'm never prepared for anything, always forgetting to pack a snack or sand toys when we go to the park, not having any wipes or extra pants for my kid when he messes himself. Always having to borrow these items from other mommies, my face full of shame, even when they tell me they understand, they have 3 kids themselves.

I wear my hair in pigtails, when I so fancy. My chidren have never attended anything more organized than preschool or storyhour. We dig around in the yard looking for worms, when the weather's nice. I'm always, ALWAYS running late. To everything.

Every once in a while, when the planets align just so, I find another Mommy rowing a dinghy like mine. Ok, I admit it -- it's just happened once. But it's glorious to find another mom who appreciates the finer things in life. Like old school paper, pencil and dice role playing games. The merits of playing a video game for 6 hours straight. Trashy celebrity gossip rags. Or leaving the kids with the grandparents to get your drink on and dance the night away in some dingy, dimly lit overcrowded lounge.

I like to think I've stayed true to myself, while also embracing the part of me that is Mommy. I'm all about feminism and equality. When my daughter wanted a Bob the Builder cake for her birthday, she got it. She loves to play outside in the dirt, and I encourage it. When she's debating on whether to be a ballerina or a firefighter when she grows up, I suggest being a ballerina who's on the volunteer fire department.

I also try to keep an open mind and agree to requests from my son, when he wants help putting on his sister's Cinderella dress. Polishing his fingernails if he asks, and letting him wear one of my rings if he wants. And stand up for him and say, "That's what he wanted" if someone should dare tsk, tsk me about it.

While some mothers are dragging their babies and children off to pageants or getting their ears pierced and suggesting I do so too, I stand firm. My children are their own people and not my personal accessories or an accomplishment. Should they ever want to do those things, I'll support them. But they're not going to do them, solely because *I* want them to.

I guess that's one way I have changed. My children have given me a reason to root out the issues I care about, and to stand firm on them. Before children, I was a reed in the wind, bending to the whims of wishes of others, whether I agreed or not.