Relationships: Part 1

It has been one hell of a week, emotionally; a real roller coaster ride. This just exacerbates the typical drama that seems to adhere to me like metal to magnets. And I am so tired of the drama. Dealing with it on a daily basis is the most exhausting job I have. I used to think of myself as a helpful friend, listening to others as they sort out their problems, giving them a sounding board, dishing out advise (whether wanted or not), and just trying to be there for others when their own lives seemed to overwhelm them. I realized that I was nothing but a beast of burden, and probably not at all helpful to anyone in the long run. On top of that, I was damaging myself, surrounding myself with the problems of others and therefore making myself incapable of solving my own. Maybe I felt that if I took on this baggage I wouldn't need to be responsible for my own, but whatever I was attempting all I had accomplished was to become a drowning victim of the drama I had created. My psychologist asked "Why is it you feel you are always surrounded by drama? Answer that question and you will be able to take the steps to eliminate the problem." That is what I have been trying to ask and answer for quite awhile, but it was truly brought home this week.

I will say that I took a much needed reprieve after quitting my job. I didn't answer the phone and I did little else except to clean the house and do laundry, shovel snow and cook, and surf the Internet for neat dumb junk, read and send email, and vegetate. Yes, this became my time to be lazy and self-absorbed, to allow others to deal with their own issues and to allow me the time to, well, heal. It was wonderfully therapeutic and I was able to shut my mind off to all the little bites that life, in general, seemed to have taken from me for the past several months, nay years.

I think the hardest part of being a single parent is the single bit, especially when you've never been a "single" unit in your whole entire life. All of the sudden you alone have the sole responsibility of everything. There is no one to share in the decision-making, the financial burdens, or emotional tribulations that come along in this day-to-day life. When one is used to having another body there, be he supportive or otherwise, the onus of taking it on alone can be devastatingly overwhelming. The lives you moulded as a couple have now come to depend upon you and only you. And maybe those decisions that were made as a couple would not have been made by you, as a single, but still, you have the sole responsibility for the outcome of these "coupled" decisions. And sometimes you can feel that no matter what you do, no matter what you try to accomplish, no matter how good the intentions, somehow it all turns to shit and you are left facing the failure of a marriage, the failure to produce productive and responsible offspring, and the failure to maintain friendships that you have held so close to your heart for so many years. And over time these "personal" failures seem to glom together to become such a form of insurmountable guilt and grief, the core of that ever dreaded psychological, dysfunctional drama that you have allowed yourself to become.

I trudged through two bi-polar emotional experiences this week. After having a full seven plus days of mental recuperation and the week of beginning the process of creating a menu for "the inn", I received an invitation from Dick (who was overseas at the time) to a Valentine Party at his house on Saturday. Now, you have to understand that around Thanksgiving, the neighbors were at Dick's house at the time one of them asked WHEN (not if) we were going to get engaged. Dick laughed then blew us all away by saying we'd announce our engagement at a Valentine's Day Party. Before we could all get excited, he stipulated that he just wasn't sure what year it would be. In the meantime, he asked about my preference of rings and also spoke with our children about future plans of spending our lives together. But that was weeks ago. In actuality, I thought we would use this night to announce, not the engagement, but the final closure of the property in Staunton, VA. Unfortunately, the purchase of the inn died it's last death on Tuesday afternoon. Now, if I have learned anything in this life, it is not to expect the expected. On Monday night while I was making dinner, Dick and Kyle ran and errand and when they came back Dick told me that Kyle said we could get married, but he didn't say when. (I get teased like this all the time, but this really felt different.) And so I was quite thrilled, very humbled, and incredibly overwhelmed when Dick asked for my hand two days later, on Valentine's day...no ring, no bent knee, but a lovely valentine card with the words "will you marry me, please" carefully inscribed inside. Which brings me back to the Valentine Party invitation.

My very best friend of so many years has slammed the door on our relationship, placing the blame of the demise solely at my front stoop. I do know that I am at some fault. I have not called as often as I should. I use the Internet as my main form of communication. And I have segregated myself from others but not intentionally. Before I quit my job, I found I had no time anymore. Every minute of every second of every day was filled with something or someone and I had no time for me. And I was so tired and exhausted and spirit-broken that the path I saw ahead of me was nothing but more of the same, a dark hole that I had managed to dig myself into with no chance of escape. So, I quit my job, spent days resting and reevaluating, and felt deep in my soul that something good was going to come to pass. And this is no excuse, but when my invitation came to the Valentine's party, I sent it out to friends and family across the board with a little aside that Dick might be asking me to marry him at the party. I should have called Elaine and told her. I shouldn't have sent her an en masse email. I should have phoned, period. She wrote me back in the afternoon and her reply was very presice. Lose her email address like I've lost her phone number. I felt as though I'd been kicked in the gut. Having her cut that last thread that I had with my past life at a time when I was just getting the chance to reweave old threads with new, well, I was not prepared for the loss. But there it was. The End written in big letters across this chapter of my life.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this mental evaluation...drama. So, maybe one can't prevent it, per Se, but one can make it less "dramatic". Maybe her ending our friendship was a way that she could purge her own drama. Maybe her blaming me was a cover for her own withdrawal and a way to alleviate her own guilty feelings about our "break up". Or maybe it was none of these things, but something else completely different that I, in my ignorance, refuse to acknowledge. But whatever it was, and as much as it hurts my heart, I will abide by her wishes. I will close that chapter of my life and weave tomorrow with all new threads. I will continue to pray for her health as well as hope for a renewal of a new and better friendship, but I will not hold my breath, I will not rant and rave, and I will not beg for forgiveness for something I did not do intentionally. I will instead sadly yet proudly and with a positive spirit walk down this new road I have chosen, taking my own baggage but leaving the drama of others on the curb where it was given to me. I will not pick it up anymore. I may have the strength, but have not the will. It is enough for me to care for the baggage of my immediate family when their own arms get to tired for the load, and they will help me carry mine.

My words to Elaine will always be that I love you. I will miss you my friend, my sister, my guardian angel. I do not think I will truly be the same ever again, but I will survive this as I have survived so much before. And in the end, the better person I will become will be due to the magic that we spun with our laughter and our tears. For that I will always be grateful.

Update 6/21/07: This is now all water over the damn. After many months of stewing in our own juices, Elaine and I are back on track as friends will be once they stop being hard-headed because we sure as hell aren't hard-hearted. Dick sent me to Utah to see her because he got sick and tired of me complaining all the time. Thank you my darling Richard! It was a mini-vacation too long in coming that was way too short. But Elaine and Frank are coming to see us in our new digs so all is good!