a bitter taste lingers

[Forgive me for turning this blog into a once-a-month-update page. I am also disgusted.]

Six weeks later, the physical wounds from England have healed; a splinter from the parqay floors finally exited the toughened skin on the bottom of my foot and gone are the blisters I accumulated while walking excessively. Slowly the rest of it is healing too, until one day maybe I'll forget that I ever loved someone else's children as if they were my own. There is no tidiness in this breach, it overlaps other friendships, put things into jeopardy, caused me to wonder if I shouldn't be friends with anyone that knew them.

I realize that when I am hurt or wronged or mad at someone I pull out the guillotine and let it fall without thinking. Leafing through a photo album of my previous birthdays revealed the faces of those long dead ghosts, who keep haunting me. I hear of them, people think I want to know things and I languish in that knowledge. It's not that I don't care what they're up to, it's that I care too much.

Today it was Marilyn, who is getting married. Last week it was Laura, who confronted me in person and I ducked away. Recently I learned that Deanna is back in town and done with school.

I don't regret the loss of these friends. I imagine every day is a cleaner, fresher, more stable day because they aren't in it. I know that I am a happier person for their absence. I am absolutely complete with how things ended with each of them and I can't say there's anything to repair or fix or say or apologize for.

And yet, somehow hearing of their lives, both successes and failures, I feel an urge to rekindle what good parts I have allowed to remain in the muck of my memory. I feel like congratulating them, supporting them, but there's something about the decision I made in not being friends with them that is so strong it holds me back from even bothering. It's been over a year since I talked to two of them in person and I only feel this way when I hear about them.

There is something special in having someone around you that knows you for who you really are, somehow who cares for you no matter what you do, it's just too bad that it was not always there from me or them.

As I've survived the emotional fallout from those situations, I find that I am less likely to readily accept the offer of friendship. I used to gobble up any attention anyone gave me. No more. I'm friendly, but not open for business. I have hibernated this winter and come out leaner and feeling better than I have in a long time. Those that I want to know and be on good terms with I've tried to be in touch with to let them know I'm still interested. I've rarely chosen my friends and I'm still revelling in the greatness of it.

I worry that I keep cutting off my older friends and that it's a bad sign if someone doesn't have any friends from childhood or school, but I'm fairly sure if I met Val or Walter ten years ago we'd be close today.

Apparently Laura announced to everyone at the coffee shop that she was disappointed in me because she thought we were "friends for life." I guess all break-ups are hard, even if you treated the person like shit. And what a better life I get to have now!