About friends........

BF popped round, what's that you say, popped round?  The first time this year (except on Bday in June) and I was desperately hoping for some productive time and there was a ding dong and there she was.  Oh and just to add to the discombobulatingness of it all The FW was in the kitchen at the time and guess what he stayed, yes my friend, he stayed to join in the conversation......(he hates her)....... but still he stayed instead of doing his usual disappearing act down to the cabin in the garden.  And then - and then he fell asleep in the chair and started snoring - what the f...  So we went into the sitting room and chatted more, it is plain we have less and less in common, but still.  Apparently she came round to see if I wanted to pop up to the local posh tea room/gifty shop type place.  Really.  No, says I for I have not showered today and look like a Gom.  Truly I do not appreciate it when people pop round unannounced and expect me to be available when the thought strikes them. When we spoke on the phone yesterday she said we must go out somewhere, maybe next week, which I think might be nice depending on how stressed busy I am and how much I achieve this week, but I now have lost half a day pah! 

We have not been out anywhere since  Spring, we went to the next town over where it is nice, you see, and now she goes to lovely places with boy(sorry)man friend).  We used to go everywhere all the time and we laughed and laughed til we cried.  Then the fun places stopped and it was hospital/doctor/consultant/mri etc etc and I didn't mind because she is my friend and we laughed our way through the horrid places.  And then........last year it was a new friend (who she was helping through a difficult marriage then break up then new life) that she went to the nice places with (oh) whilst I stayed at home and then she met the new bloke and that was it, up to Wolverhampton every weekend and then coming home and saying how nice the new people were and how much they liked her (Y we like you so much you must come and live up here) and what lovely places they went and how much I would like those  places. Really. 

Anyhoo, she is now talking of going there to live and her daughter wants to go the college there, so in about 6-9 months I reckon she'll be off and my daughter will lose her best and oldest friend too.  It was interesting to note that she said about missing family, whereas with the last boy/man friend who lived in Durham she said she definitely would not move there as she would miss friends/family too much.

Maybe it is a Catch22 situation.  I have distanced myself because
a) the onesidedness of our friendship,
b) my depression (which she barely acknowledges despite my mentioning it),
c)  I knew last year that things would change because she has had her first grandchild that she looks after 1 1/2 days a week despite her poor health and her mother's health has deteriorated a bit,
d) I was beginning to feel that the agenda was always hers, when, where etc.  There is a lot of impetuosity about her life whereas I have to plan a bit because I have other people to consider and that it was becoming a bit difficult to deal with the after-effects of the random days out etc. Plus I have no pence to go out with. 

So maybe she is distancing from me because I am not phoning every day and we have less and less to talk about because we are at opposite ends of the spectrum, and I have nothing to talk about because a) I go nowhere, b) I do things she has no interest in at all, like crochet/yarn/colours/patterns and yet I have to listen to her talking for 55 mins in the allotted phone hour about who she has seen and the music etc (her boyfriend is a radio station manager and dj and has access to music venues etc.  I may get 3/4 mins chat about MiL going into hospital/care home or FiL breaking his ribs etc. 

I do not phone on Fridays because she is either getting ready to go to Wolverhampton or left Thursday night.  I do not phone on Wednesday/Thursday because she looks after baby who is a busy boy.  I do not phone at weekends because she is away or he is down here.  I do not phone on Monday because she is exhausted after the travelling etc and needs to sleep.  So that leaves Tuesday and that is when I phone.  She does not phone me.  Partly because The FW listens in on our phonecalls (more of that another time) and partly because she does not think to.

I feel that she is paying lip service to me and it hurts because we have been friends for 10 years and have been through some really difficult times together.  But I have come to realise that it is a one way street.  Which freaks me out a little because that is the relationship I had with The FW before I called time on it.  The fact that my best friend and husband have the same selfish qualities.  That and the fact that they both injured their backs in the same lumbar area on the same day (nothing funny I promise).

So in one year I 'lose' my mother in law, my sister in law and my best friend, the three closest females in my life who have known me so long and so well.  I am grieved.

Good night, my virtual friends, good night.
x

PS - Oh yes, the cat decided she must kill the evil Christmas cards whilst I am writing them, such fun, and the dog is in pain in his back legs, struggling up the stairs (oh blimey we can't afford the vet) but then he is 9 years old and a little dog and so he is an old man now, sigh.