sarahntastic

High school mostly sucked for me.  I was smart and sarcastic and too mature to relate to most of my peers.  I had a mom everyone knew as The One to Ask What Such-and-Such Means (dirty words, mostly), and a penchant for loving books more than anything else.  I had a really cool car thanks to having a really cool dad.  Everyone thought that 1966 Mustang  was amazing, but really I cared mostly about getting to school and work and One Step Beyond (see underage club, circa 1988, 1989 for definition) in it.  I liked having money; I liked reading in my room; and I liked a few close friends.  Mostly I wanted to grow up and get the fuck out of high school.

So then there was facebook.  I had no idea so many people were nosy, adding me just to see my pics, because really? Why else are you friending me, peeps I haven’t seen or heard from in nearly 20 years?  I mean, we didn’t jive back in 1987, we ain’t gonna jive now, knowhatI’msayin?  But it was sort of neat to see a few people grown up.  Via facebook, of course.  Even the locals.  There would be no actual meeting.  Why would we meet now when we couldn’t bear each other during high school?

Then the 20th reunion came along.  I didn’t want to go.  An old friend persuaded me to go.  I got drunk really early in the night.  Because I couldn’t bear the whole thing.  I don’t know why.  Most people were fascinated that I wasn’t married, didn’t have children.  I was some anomaly to be interviewed.  Unfortunately I was so far gone on vodka I had to tell myself to stay quiet to avoid embarrassing myself.  One dude grabbed my ass many times.  Women wanted to know what life was like without kids.  I wanted to get the fuck outta there.  Just like 20 years ago.

It was nice to see  a few people.  But after all is said and done, I could have done without.  20 years is really no time at all.  Everyone still looked like their 15 year old selves.

Adults with a weird history of weird awkwardness to the weirdth degree really need to meet again after 20 years?

I’m thinking no.

Me:  I can’t wait til Thursday!

BFF:  Really? you’re that excited about getting your IUD?

Me:  Say wha? I’m talking about you & I going out Thursday night.

BFF:  Oh.  I thought you were super excited like maybe you’re just gonna start fucking and fucking.

Me:  Um.

BFF:  Maybe that’s just what I would do.

Her father was a raging alcoholic.  He beat them all for his own personal recreation.  Her mother, her brother, her.  He threw her against the brick fireplace and broke her clavicle when she was a small child.  He berated them all; he viciously beat them all.  And yet somehow she was his favorite.  She stared him in the eye while he beat the shit out of her.  He had a respect for her that he didn’t have for her mother and brother.  Because of this, her mother resented her and abused her emotionally her entire life.  She would spend most of her adult life chasing her mother’s love.

In 1968, she was 17, angry, and hurt because her father forced her home from college simply because she was dating a Jewish guy.  Otherwise she wouldn’t have been home that day when he returned from after-work drinking, enraged by Black Panthers and hippies and socialists.  He beat her while she sat in a kitchen chair, staring at him.  When he was finally done, she left, with nothing.  She got in her car and drove 200 miles west to a family friend.  She had the phone number of a former college acquaintance from California.  She called.  He drove 1,500 miles to get her.  She left with him and just a few clothes she had sewn for herself, waiting for this kid to come get her.  She wouldn’t return to her home state for many years.

He was angry and hurt, too.  He left college because the money ran out.  He had a large, close family, but he was the youngest and left behind a lot.  In 1968 he was 18.  He drove 1,500 miles to rescue someone he barely knew.  He brought her to California, and she was immediately embraced by his family.  His mother loved her as her own from the start.  His mother said, whenever anyone asked how she could take in a stranger, “she was a child. I never understood how her own parents could throw away their child.  Now she is my daughter.”

After a year living and working together, she asked him if they were going to get married.  They did.

Then they had three kids.  And lots of pets.  And a house with a pool.  And vacations.  And their kids grew up.

And they stayed married.  Continue to stay married.

After he saved her and she saved him.

Many years ago I had a friend who challenged me to my core.  Often in manipulative, unrealistic, and simply insane ways thinking back on it all, but at the time, I thought she was wise and smart.  Her AA, OA, NA and whatever else Anonymous theories I met mostly with a “get over yourself” attitude, but I certainly was not, am not, perfect.  So I listened.  I learned what I could.

She was considerably older than me.  I was 24 when we first met and she was near 40.  She had had a life, a child, a couple divorces, many boyfriends, many dates, many a fall-out with her family, and of course the addiction battles.  I was divorced but still very naive.  I hadn’t yet had my first cocktail, never smoked, never did drugs, and never really dated, having married my second serious boyfriend when I was 19.

Mostly I thought she was a mature, confident woman who did whatever she wanted, and I wanted to be like her.  She talked about sex like no one I’d ever known.  She told men off for being bad in bed.  She was honest with men and required them to be honest with her.  She was confident at work.  Confident with women.  And I was fun, single, and pretty much willing to let her take me on as her project for awhile.  We were perfect for each other at that particular time in our lives.

After a couple years, though, I wasn’t cutting it with her.  I never did meet her expectations.  After all, I was still me.  Certainly I learned a bit more about men and relationships and making a place for myself at work.  I learned I was lucky to have a supportive family, something she did not have.

But it all ended when she challenged me in an honest and forthright way during a time I was particularly depressed and lost.

She wanted me to commit to a trip, a seminar, a plan for my life–many things at once that I had been putting off.  We argued, I cried, she was frustrated with me, I was frustrated with me.  I wouldn’t commit to anything.  I remember, vividly, the final phone call.  I said over and over again that I was confused and unsure of what to do with myself.  Finally she said, “Sarah, confusion is a delusion your brain allows you so you don’t have to make choices.  It’s an excuse.  You aren’t confused, you are scared and so you choose nothing.  But you are not confused.”

And there it was.  Straight truth.

I know what I want.  I know who I love and care for.  I know who is good for me and who isn’t.  I know that I put myself in situations that allow for the delusion of confusion to be cultivated so that I have an excuse not to be myself, not to do anything, not to commit, not to move forward, not to find a man who wants to be with me fully and completely.

I am not confused.  And neither are you.

It started with the realization that my COBRA subsidy ended December 1.

It continued with deepening depression about my financial situation.

Then there was a really shitty bff birthday party.

Then sweet Miss Callie went to doggie heaven.

Then competition and nosey-ness reared its ugly head.

Then sweet Miss Abby went to doggie heaven.

Then I had to figure out how to pay bills.

Then I couldn’t stop eating.

But.

I spent days and days with Cutest Baby.

I got two (small) cupcake orders.

It’s looking like I might just sell the BMW and get a little cash to live on.

I met fantastic women who will help me build the diaper bank.

But.

I am still hoping for a few less things that suck next week, though.

Tranny Ambush:  when your friend that’s a boy that plays boy sports, sweats like a boy, talks like a boy, drinks like a boy, acts like a boy, dresses up like a frumpy woman to pick you up for lunch not having forewarned you of such.

Also used when said boy wants to date you then reveals at some point when you already like him “I think I’m a girl, a lesbian, in fact.”

I have been a mess all week, and I haven’t stopped crying all morning.  Today, my best friend is moving.  We have been neighbors, a couple doors away, for five years.  Although we’ve known each other for almost 15 years, it wasn’t until we both moved here, at a time when both of us were at the lowest points in our lives, that we connected as adults.

The thing is, we haven’t been connected at the hip all these years.  We are both independent and not into the constant spending of time with each other.  We haven’t even had much in the way of emergencies or the borrowing of butter or making dinner for each other.  We do have talking, and laughing–so much laughing, and sadness, and kindness, and generosity, and changes.

I will miss our impromptu drinks on my patio, never scheduled, not very often, but always right when we both needed it.  I will miss long evenings walking around downtown, drunk, everything hilarious (only to us).  I will miss seeing her baby a few times a week when her mom is out walking him.  I will miss getting lucking and finding her on her patio when I walked the dogs.  I will miss pretending we are runners.  I will miss the texts “whachu wear?  flip flops or heels?”   I will miss the comfort of knowing she is there.

I’ve never told her this:  when I talk about her, I always say she saved me.  Because she did.  I really don’t know what would have happened to me if she hadn’t come into my life when she did.  For this I am thankful.