Heather Barton

Recently a 7 year friendship ended.  I did not choose to end it, it was her choice.  And as a friend I’ll respect her choice and not argue or question her decision.   Now, if it had been something I was at fault with I would happily apologize and ask what I could do to make it up to her.  But it isn’t really that type of break.  It’s a “I disagree with your choices and can no longer be associated with you” type of break.

So you see why I’m not going to put any effort into trying to “mend” the relationship.  I will say I am surprised by her actions.   She touts acceptance of others, Democrat, Vegan, Spirituality over Organized Religion, Yoga… you get the idea.   Then makes this judgment out of excessive paranoia.  Of course, she does have a bit of paranoia, which even she herself might admit.  I’ve always attributed it to a lack of trust in people & her judgment of them.  I watched it when she tried to date online.  Whatever.

Amusingly this isn’t the first time a girlfriend has ended a friendship.  (More amusingly I look back over my pattern and ALL my close girlfriends ended it with me, not me with them.  And ALL my boyfriends I ended it with them, not them with me.)   My longest friendship with a female friend was 10 years.  Lydia Riehl.  I met her when I was in high school.  She was my boss at Baskin Robbins.  4 years older than I, we hit if off over common interests and the fact we looked like sisters in our uniforms!  We stayed in contact when I went to college for 3 years and when I came back an eager to party 21 year old she would come with me to The Black Angus in Burbank (when it had a dance floor and was hip!) and we would party the night away 3 days a week.

She was originally from Alabama & had no family out here in SoCal so she often came to my family’s for holiday events.   She’d moved here to try her hand at acting as so many do.  But Fate was having none of that.  After managing a Baskin Robbins store here and there she ended up working in the purchasing department of Hilton Corp. and is now (thank you Google! lol) VP of Op for Carver & Assoc a hospitality contract services company.

During our 10 year friendship we lived together for a year and I while she wasn’t my only friend and I wasn’t her only friend, we tried to stay in contact and hang out.  (Amusingly, very similar to what I had with my last long term friend, Eithne.)  But we were slowly growing apart toward the end of those 10 years.  As I neared thirty and she surpassed it our interests were no longer very in sync.  But she knew me and I knew her… or at least I thought so.

Then on her 31st (if my math is correct and I kinda suck at math!) birthday she invited a bunch of us to meet her at our current favorite watering hole (which is now a clothing shop.. go figure!)  She invited me, my old roommate Ellen and some work friends.  When Ellen and I got there, we saw Lydia seated at a big table with three people.  So we sat down and we all started drinking and chatting.  Ellen and I naturally start flirting with the one cute guy at the table.  We, logically, assumed he is one of her work friends.

Long story short, I win.  Duh.  And take the cute guy home to play.  Couple of days later I call her and leave a message on her machine.   No reply, so after a bit I call again.  No reply.  So then after 10 days I leave a message, “Apparently you’re upset at me for some reason and I have no idea what it is!  If you’re mad, at least talk to me so I can fix it!”  Day 14 and she finally calls me.

Apparently the guy I took home wasn’t a co-worker.  He was a man who’d come over to talk to her while she was sitting at the big table alone, waiting for us.  And I’d stolen him.  And somehow I was supposed to have known this.  I profusely apologized and told her she could happily have him as my friendship with her meant more to me than he did.   But she didn’t like the “new me.” (Back from Club Med, see previous post with pix 😉  See I’d discovered my inner entertainer was sick of being squelched and was OUT there!) and she felt the “old me” (more of a follower than a leader) would have known she was flirting with him.

I ran that last bit past Ellen who agreed if she was flirting maybe it was a Southern thing cuz she missed it too.  But I then sat back and asked myself if I wanted to bend over backwards to repair the friendship.  I did the whole pro/con list and came up with lots of “I do for her” stuff (I went to her, she never came to me.  I was the one who did most of the relationship maintenance, etc.) and very little “she does for me” stuff.   So I left it.  I didn’t call her.   And she left it.  And we both moved on.  (No doubt she did the same and felt my nagging need to get together wasn’t worth the effort. lol.)

And sometimes that’s what happens in any relationship.  Okay… any ADULT relationship.  Those who just cannot let go and stalk or harass, well, they are not adults.   But we move on.  We take the lessons that person helped us learn and we treasure them.   We meet new people who are hear to teach us or be taught by us and the experience always enriches our lives.

I’ve always wished I could have held my oldest and middle son back a year in school, just like I did my youngest son.   They would have had a better time of it in school.  Their little brains would have developed more and sadly now it is too late.   But if I’d done that I wouldn’t have met Eithne and we wouldn’t have been there for each other in the next 7 years.  So in that way I cannot completely regret the choice, even if we are no longer friends.

The nice thing about a blog is often the desire to meet up with old friends is to show them your personal growth and see what growth they’ve done.  Amusingly now that I have this forum, if anyone ever gets curious or wonders what Heather is doing now, they have only to read the blog.   I felt that way about a certain man who’s friendship I treasured but had to break contact with.   Made me excessively glad to learn recently he’d been reading it all this time.  But that’s probably just my big ego!

And how do I know the friendship is over?  She de-Friended me from her Facebook page.  Took me almost a week to notice!

St Patrick’s Day weekend was eventful.  One of the events for me was I had a little fender bender.  Thankfully, no one was hurt.  It was a confusing intersection, I was trying to turn right, turns out I was in the wrong lane for that and I hit her as she was speeding past me on the right.  She was going so fast the force straightened out my right turn as my front bumper scraped across her car, slightly denting the door.

We both pulled over and began the process of exchanging insurance & license information.  Which was made infinitely easier with an iPhone!  I just snapped the pictures!  Who  needs paper & pen!  And I was able to forward them thru email my updated insurance cards which I’d never got around to printing out.  Plus, her phone had died so before she did anything she asked to use my phone.

I said, “Sure” then watched in bemusement as she made about 5 phone calls, one to 911 to request police at the accident.   Now I had no problem with the police being called.  I hadn’t been drinking all night.  But as much as I loved a man in a uniform, this was going to mean us standing around waiting for them to show up.

“You want to call the police?” I asked.

“Yes!” she insists and gives me a haughty look. “You always call the police, haven’t you been in an accident before!”

I’m trying not to laugh at her.  Girlfriend, I think to myself, I’ve been driving longer than you’ve been alive!  I’ve had 35 years of “incidents” between the ticket here and there, and an accident or two where it was my fault and where it was not.

But I let her do her little thing.  Who am I to deprive someone of whatever makes them comfortable in a stressful situation.  Besides, now I have a lot of interesting numbers in my phone should the “event” get ugly.  But I don’t foresee that happening.  Just me finding the “positive spin” on shit that happens.  She’s shaking and upset.  I’m blase and calm.

About 10 minutes into it, Sex God goes to the CVS Pharmacy and tries to use their bathroom.  He HAS been drinking and you know you only rent beer.  When he comes out I’m surrounded by about 10 people.  Apparently she wasn’t calling them to just inform them she’d been in an accident.  She was calling them to her.

The group converses in Spanish amongst themselves and I’m just standing around now, waiting for the cops to get here.  She had her father & either brother or cousins or boyfriends, her aunt &/or mother and what looked like 3 girlfriends all crowded around her.  By now she’s in tears, cuz she was “so scared!”

Again, I’m watching in amusement.  Because really, folks, its a little fender bender.  No one was hurt.  Its just property damage and its why we have insurance.  I remember her saying, “I just got it fixed too!”  Makes you wonder if she’d recently got into another accident prior to this.  Which might explain her being upset, but if its your second accident most people know the drill and are less freaked out about it.

If so, (and even if NOT so) this emotional reaction is pretty immature.   Cuz shit happens in life ALL the time.  If you lose it over a fender bender what are you going to do when the BIG shit hits the fan.  With this, we know what to do.  We celebrate no one was hurt.  We report it and pay the damages.  We take it as a lesson learned and roll on with life.

At least that’s what I’ve learned to do.   But I watch this little Pampered Latina Princess, surrounding herself with a support system that is actually enabling her extended childhood.   I glance at her car, an Acura TSX and wonder who paid for it?  Sure its an ’05, but she’s also only 20!  She said she just got off work, so I know its possible she’s making the payments herself, but I bet if she is, she’s still living at home.

And I can’t help comparing her to me in my 20’s.  My own place as soon as I got a job.  A receptionist.  And bought my own car, paid my own insurance and went out dancing 3 nights a week.   My car wasn’t fancy, just a Ford Escort.  My apartment was a small studio with a pull out couch for a bed.  I went to my favorite club before the cover began and only had 2 drinks a night to be able to afford my fun.

When trouble happened I may have called my support system, but mostly for advice on how to handle it.  Or I just handled it on my own.  And I certainly didn’t need 10 of them! And I have my parents to thank for that.   They did not pamper me.  They did not give me a new car, or a fancy Sweet Sixteen party, or a graduation party or dinner or anything.  They scraped by to send me to college.  They both worked so we were latch-key kids who did our own homework, made our own snacks and like every teen complained about the dinner made by my working, harried mother.

And they did it without extended family.  (None near enough to help.)  With 3 kids.  The car I drove in high school was the old family station wagon and I had to share driving it with my brother.  We lived practical, not privileged.  And because of that my expectations on life are practical not privilege based.  Strive for what you want cuz whether you “deserve” it or not has nothing to do with getting it.  But earning it does.  It has everything to do with getting it.   And I teach that to my sons.  I tell them, “Childhood should suck, so Adulthood is wonderful.”   God forbid their peak happiness happens in the unreality of high school!

At one point in the Event Drama of Saturday night, her father (or grandfather, really I couldn’t tell!) comes over to me and says, “Such an emotional experience, you must be upset.”

I’m sure he means well but I find it ludicrous he thinks I’m a female in need of comforting.   So I kinda snort out a grin and say, “I’m a year from 50, it takes more than a little fender bender to rattle me.”

Secretly I’m wondering if I’m Mayhem’s little bitch, out to test the personal adult strength of the Little Princess.

Oh and a side-note… I see this across the board in all ethnicity in one way or another.  So its much less about a culture as it is about money.   I swear if I ever won the lottery, I’d never tell my kids!

Today I had an epiphany.   While I was reading a Fantasy book, the character did something that struck a chord in my soul so deep I was brought to tears.  It literally showed me the part of myself I’ve always treasured in a new way.  It showed it to me as a gift from God/Fate.  As a combination of the genetic and environmental heritage of both my parents.  And as the greatest I can do for mankind.  And no its not writing or sex. lol

This gift?  Well, its my ability to accept another person.  To dance with joy & love unconditionally with those that others often refuse to.  Not as a peer, a fellow also discarded, but just as a person.  In a way it helps them re-learn to love & respect themselves, re-connect (despite being tossed aside)  to society.  Letting them see the value I see in them.

lol…. I sound like a megalomaniac!

I think I can do this because I have a certain level of detachment, which I get from my father.  And I have have a level of my mother’s intense compassion for others.  Raised Protestant I have the basic Christian values, but that religion was never accepting enough for my soul.  But it left me with a desire for fairness in an unfair world.  It also left me with a disdain for those who judge.  (Ironically I have to fight judging those who judge or I’m just as bad at accepting as they are! lol)

Looking back at the people I’ve known…. the men I’ve dated or encountered or slept with…. I can see a pattern.   I tend to skim contact with those “whole” or “average” or “normal” people.  Often its a two-way skim… they don’t understand me &/or my uniqueness, so both of us finding nothing in common, we move on.  I tend to form connections with people who find my uniqueness interesting and I find their uniqueness interesting.  Maybe everyone does that… but it seems to me often people bypass uniqueness in others, instead searching for sameness.

Life is sometimes this.

I’ve observed there have been a lot of people in my life that “normals” would shy away from.  (Including my Ex-husband in that group normals shy away from! lol)  People with horrible pasts walking the straight & narrow & finding society making it harder than it had to be out of fear.   People who make personal choices different from what society thinks as normal (tattoos, hair styles, piercings, careers, personal entertainment).  Or people who’ve made horrible choices, paid the price, learned the lesson and have come out whole, scarred but whole.

I don’t always join in with the Fruits & Nuts & Flakes & Extremists crowd that often find me interesting, but I do add my own flavor of “outside the box” to the mix.  And through our uniqueness we enjoy life.  Celebrating it on a different level than others.

Does that make me/us bad?  Does it make us rebels?  Does it make us the dregs of society?  Just because we choose different paths?  Does choosing “Outside the Box” mean we are “Outside Society”, as in not part of it?  To be shunned as unloved?  Can no one love without the conditions of society or expectation of perfection?

Unconditional love is a complicated thing.  On the one hand can any of us truly love without conditions?  So many feel that to do so will open them up to hurt, scams and humiliation.  Others feel our very nature (fault ridden as it is) makes it an impossible feat.  Yet I think its our highest calling as humans.

And its not as impossible as you think.  It means knowing the person in the NOW.  As a changing entity, shaped by the past & their choices, but not necessarily ruled by them.  And forgiving/moving past/ignoring the things/actions/choices of their past.  Especially if they no longer apply to the person they are NOW.

Of course, you must do this in a way that isn’t foolish.  If a man has beaten you, you can love him unconditionally, but you may need to do it far away from arms reach!  Because loving someone doesn’t mean you need to take whatever shit they dole out.  You don’t have to believe the liar, give to the user personality or take the shit of the asshole.  Forgive the past, but only trust if it no longer applies to the now.

Also you must do the same for the opposite of judging the past.  You should not put all your needs, unspoken or spoken, for emotional feedback on the individual you love.  And all your hopes and dreams and financial security shouldn’t be placed in the hands of your love!  Your love is there to love.  To share and express the feelings that person’s company brings to you.  THAT is Unconditional Love.  Enjoying yourself having love for another.  Often, faults and all.  We do that for our kids.  We (mostly) do that for our parents.  Why is it we cannot do that for our mates?

I’ve seen a lot of people claim to do this.  And put it mostly into practice with easy to love individuals.  But not everyone can love those that society disapproves of, or actively hates.

But I gotta tell you, closing yourself off from these without giving them a chance….  well, you’re missing out on some really interesting people.

Although, I’m not sure I could take this to the level of loving Joseph Kony!

One of the shots I took while on the road

Well, yesturday, juuuuust about nothing went as planned or expected.

First off, Mimi was at the gym today!  Since the new 24 Hour Fitness opened up in Burbank she’s been going there and it was fun connecting with her again.

Got the older two kids to school on time, even though there was only half a cup of coffee left for me to zap & drink.  Took Conor with me to Vons where, for some unknown reason, there wasn’t any hand baskets at the entrance.  We had to walk along the line of check out’s searching for one.  We promptly filled it so much I had to send him to get another one.

We got home and in the 30 minutes left till I had to take him to school I noticed my body was having interesting symptoms I sadly recognized.  Yup.. I think I got another Urinary Tract Infection coming on.  I immediately down lots of water & a cranberry pill, but I’m on Kaiser insurance now, so I knew I could go to the doctor.

So instead of heading to Costco after dropping off the youngest at school, I head to my local Kaiser and go through the process of being a walk in.  First to check in.  Then to the clinic.  Then off to Labs to pee in a cup.  Then back to clinic because she’s made a doc appointment for me since this is the 4th UTI I’ve had in 6 months & she needed to tell me that. lol.  Off to wait for my apt where the doc’s does a quick “any other pain here” exam, poking and prodding along my back and stomach and concludes its probably another simple UTI and not a symptom of something worse.  But this time they are going to grow a culture to make sure its not a strain that needs a different antibiotic. Lastly to the pharmacy section of Kaiser I go to pick up my prescription.

Yup, 2 hours later with meds in hand, I go to Costco and manage to get all my shopping done.  Then I manage top pick a line which is nice and short only to discover WHY it’s short.  Everyone is moving to another line after a few minutes as the people at the check out seem to be waiting for a manager or having difficulty or something.  Just as I move to another line, they settle their differences and move on.  Of course.

Once home I get a phone call from the work Accountant.  Emergency I got to handle.  Just as I finish it, the boss texts me… “handle this!” on the same matter. lol

Minutes later I get a call from Conor’s special writing class. (apparently HE won the “who’s gonna need test Mom” rock/paper/scissors contest I imagine they do in secret everyday.)  Conor’s IEP doesn’t have any special accommodation for him with writing tests and the one on Tuesday is super important (a state test) and he’s NOT the most “cooperative” of kids.  We wrangle an emergency addendum.

I remember to eat lunch about 2 hours past when I normally would have.  Amusingly, I wasn’t hungry.  Meds?  Illness?  The extra sausage I had at breakfast?  Mmmmmmmm.

I had an hour to try and get as much done as possible before I had to get kids.  I manage to get 5 boxes out of my house and into the garage or on their way to the boss for sorting.  And put away most of the groceries.  A quick check of Facebook…. awww.. Davy Jones died!

On the bright side, the UTI does not seem to be progressing to pain & blood in the urine.  I must of caught it early enough.  Yay!  Oh… but I am soooooooo tired and I need to stay up late enough to take the next pill on time!

Just another day in the life….  no wonder I never seem to get done all the things I set out to do!