Now Playing -
the sound of silence.
Now Eating -
nothing. HUNGRY!
Now Feeling -
HUNGRY!
Now Tweeting
- Melanie
Hm. Maybe I�ll write something this year. Maybe so.
No real reason not to, except I�ve been thinking about some of the stuff that closed out last year.
An email from a friend of mine, in response to my mass email announcing I was switching internet providers. Asking that I remove her from my �email list, as she was �not interested in being one of dozens of people that you correspond with.� She then went on to say that she thought we were better friends than that, and took me to task for not sending a card after the birth of her second child, or acknowledging the death of her sister, especially since she�d �(a) made a point to send you & Huz a condolence card after Huz's dad (or was it his mom?) passed away two years ago; and (b) I actually was going to come to the funeral home but didn't because Second Child was very sick.� Any way, she hopes it won�t �damage our relationship forever and ever. Far from it, someday, we'll do shows again together, and we'll laugh and drink and have fun...again. I look forward to that day. But, frankly, the correspondence that I get from you which is sent to no one in particular is a painful reminder of your lack of sensitivity to my personal triumphs and tragedies. Please be kind enough to remove my name from your list. I hope we get to work together again soon (I'm sure we will), and we will put this behind us, I hope. I hope all is well with you and Huz...and I wish you nothing but happiness and good health in the New Year!!!!! �
My response:
I am sorry that you feel I've neglected our friendship. But sometimes there are circumstances in people's lives that force them to turn inward as a means of self-preservation, and sometimes that comes at the expense of other friendships. I am not trying to play "can you top this?", but since my father-in-law's death four years ago, we have had to deal with the realization that my mother-in-law was most likely suffering from Alzheimer's, her subsequent car accident, her broken hip, rehab, the actual diagnosis of Alzheimer's, a series of mini-strokes that left her hospitalized, moving her down to Florida so she could be placed in assisted living near my sister-in-law, and selling her house. And now we get to watch the gradual disintegration of her mind from a distance. This year alone my father had a stroke and my mother had two spinal surgeries. There's nothing I can do to change any of this; it's a consequence of us all growing older. I have let some friendships fall by the wayside, unfortunately. But when it's been more of a deluge of tragedies than triumphs, sometimes it's all you can do to just get through the day, and not burdening even the people you consider friends with one crappy tale of woe after another seems wisest.
I do miss our friendship; I saw J. at an audition a few weeks ago, and when she told me you, she and M. had gotten together for your first girls� night out in a dog's age, I asked her to please let me know the next time you all were planning another one.
I sent you my email address because I wanted you to know where you could get in touch with me if you needed to. You are not part of any 'list of dozens of people to whom I send meaningless correspondence.' I could forward to you every stupid email joke or "inspirational" message that comes my way and consider that "keeping in touch," but I don't.
But I do think of you, and I do wish you well.
I told the aforementioned friend J. of our email exchange, and it turns out she had a similar, but much more contentious, experience with the same friend. They seem to have ironed it out (hence the recent �girls� night out�), but she�s of the opinion that this person needs to stick with her therapy in order to iron out some communication issues (chief among them �Think before you hit send!�) and that her even-more-high-maintenance husband (and I am not implying she�s high maintenance because she expected me to contact her after her sister died, I am calling her high maintenance because I�ve been in shows with her where the second act curtain had to be held because she hadn�t gotten THE DAMN CURLERS OUT OF HER HAIR!) may have forced the issue a bit. J. thought I handled it as well as I could have. I think so too, but I wish it hadn�t come to that.
I haven�t been the best friend of late, to altogether too many of my friends. But it�s not like there�d been dozens of unreturned phone calls from her end. In fact, the only contact I�d had from her in recent memory was (ironically) her email address scrawled on the back of a program from a show she�d seen a couple of years ago that Huz had played. The whole schizo tone of the email was strange, too; �Don�t write me anymore because you are not my friend/but let�s do a show and go out for drinks after! Kiss-kiss!�
*sigh* I�m letting it go. I�d like to think the people I consider friends truly understand that sometimes (sometimes) life gets in the way. (At least I know they understand when I don�t come see the latest �Murder in The Bedroom�-Van Zandt & Milmore POS that comes down the pike. 
)
The second, even less fun occurrence took place on New Year�s Eve. Someone I considered a friend (for narrative purposes, Thing 1) spend the evening trashing another friend (Thing 2). They had a disagreement some months back, which I believe grew out of Thing 2 projecting some of the really shitty stuff she was going through in her personal life onto her professional life. Thing 2 has come to her senses, and is trying to move on. Thing 1 has not, and I believe she is now doing the same exact thing right back at Thing 2. Anyway, to hear Thing 1 go on ad nauseum about how �crazy� Thing 2 is, unfortunately aided and abetted by several others at the party, was extremely disheartening, and does not speak well at all as to what I thought was Thing 1�s character. And she is aware of my discomfort, as she remarked upon it to a mutual friend. Who also was not pleased with her behavior.
I didn�t say anything at the time, and I regret it. I was torn between bringing down the room with a �You know she�s a friend of mine, why are you saying such things?� and deciding to leave, which would probably have brought protestations. It was just a very awkward situation. So very junior high, and we�re all old enough to know better.
But they say no-one can take advantage of you without your permission, and I certainly surrendered that up pretty easily. No more. I hereby dub this �Call People on Their Bullshit Year.� We are NOT twelve. We are older and we are past that and gawddammit, isn�t it a helluva lot EASIER to work with people when you get along???
I guess it just takes some people longer to graduate.
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3
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was ~ what
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a very fine cat indeed - Friday, Jan. 17, 2014
happy new year! - Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013
this is where i am - Saturday, Jun. 30, 2012
this is how it is - Friday, Feb. 24, 2012
a very late last year's wrap-up - Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012
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