That's What Friends Are For (or are they?)

I've had many friends throughout my life. Of course, my idea of what a friend is has changed many times over the years. I guess that's normal as we get older and wiser. When I was a child, I thought my best friend then would always be my best friend. I didn't know any better. Who am I kidding, even as a young adult, after having quite a few "best friends" I thought the one I had at that point in time was going to be it until I got old and gray. This is the part of me that is forever optimistic and always seeing the good in people. At 42 I still hold on to that shit (even though I call it shit) and believe it always works out the way it is supposed to (which is supposed to be good) and people, deep down, will do the right thing. Shit, right? Yeah, well, I didn't say it was accurate, I just said I still hang on to it.

  

Anyway....I read something once early on - a poem or some such thing. I just looked it up (gotta love the Internet) - it was the Reason, Season and Lifetime friend poem and it said people either come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Some of it is hokey but some of it made a whole lot of sense to me. It made me understand why friends come and go. Or maybe it just gave me a reason to believe why they went. Because sometimes I just didn't understand. I started to think my expectations were too high.  Or maybe there was something wrong with me. Or maybe I didn't deserve friends who stayed. 

I like to think that people do come into your life for a reason and you may not know what that is until quite some time down the road because it hurts when they go, but eventually, you do figure it out. Some of my friends now are text friends. Some are shopping friends. Some are hang out and have a beer friends. And some.... very few.... would drive an hour, at three in the morning to come and pick me up if I called them because I needed a ride. Those people.... they are my friends. If you're lucky, you get a few of those in your life and you hang on to them. I've never been one of those people, though, who had a friend like that since kindergarten or grammar school or even high school. I always envied people who had that and wished I did.

What I do have is one friend who I've known since 1988. He is, by far, the person I've known the longest and am still extremely close with. He is and always has been, my soul mate. He knows me inside and out. He can look at me and know what I'm thinking. I hardly see him anymore but I bet he can still finish my sentences. He understands me and who I really am and what makes me tic. He understood me, I think, before I even did. And the really cool part? He accepts me for exactly who I am - faults and all (and I have a lot)!

SO.... why am I not with him you might be wondering? Good question (my first band). We'd probably kill each other.  I love him. I need him. We just can't be with each other.  I tried. I really did. I dated him.... slept with him, even. Several times. I tried everything I could think of to MAKE myself feel that way about him. But you know what 'they' say? You can't make the heart love somebody. I can tell you exactly how true that statement is because I tried so very hard. I knew if I married that man, he would make me happy for the rest of my life or do whatever was in his power to try. But I didn't. I couldn't. It wasn't fair. So 23 years later he's miserable and I'm alone.

I've dated all the wrong men.  Men who didn't care about me. One who mentally, emotionally and physically abused me. One who verbally belittled me every chance he got. One who only cared about his work. Oh, there were many. They weren't all bad. They just didn't work out for one reason or another. But there was always him. My friend. The one who knew the real me. The one no one else knew or tried to know. Not even my husbands. And you know what's funny? After two failed marriages and many relationships, the one thing I've come to realize is that at the end of the day, I want someone I can call my best friend. The one who I know, no matter what.... in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, through richer or poorer - loves me. The real me. Not the picture of somebody he was hoping I might be. I want a friend.

I wonder if I'll ever find that.  I know I'll keep looking.  Or not looking (isn't that when it finds you?)  The one thing I know for sure is that I will always have my dear friend. And that, I cherish.

Men are from Uranus....

Really, I have no clue where men are from but it's certain that men and women are from different planets.  I always thought that was a good thing because if we were both from the same place, wouldn't it be.... boring???  That's what I thought.  I'm starting to think otherwise. 

I also always thought a man and a woman could be friends and nothing more.  Maybe a gay man and a straight woman or a gay woman and a straight man, but I don't think a straight man and a straight woman can be friends and that's it.  Nothing else.  Nada.  Nope.  Because it doesn't seem to matter what happens but one always seems to either want to have sex with the other one (and this could be for the plain simple reason of just wanting to see what it's like) OR one starts to LIKE the other one, as in, romantic feelings.  BAH!!!!!!  And I have to tell ya' - it sucks on either end.  Don't think it's a one way street and you only get the shaft if you're the one doing the liking.  WRONG.  Here you could have found this awesome platonic friendship - someone to hang out with, be yourself with, talk about almost anything, get the opposite sex perspective, and BAM! they start looking at you like..... you know how.... with stars in their eyes.  Something changes somewhere.  Maybe you know when it happened or maybe you don't.  But it happened somewhere along the way and all of a sudden, one of you want something more.  WHYYYYY?  It was going along so well.  WHY DOES IT HAVE TO GET ALL FUCKED UP????  And you KNOW it's not going to end well.  But the one that has fallen says "no, no, no.... it's fine, we'll just keep being friends" and you're thinking "oh yeah.... this is going to work" but you go along with it and you don't change anything, you just keep doing what you were doing but somehow, you've led them on.  How does this happen?  You didn't do anything differently but because THEIR feelings changed, YOU led them on.  It's soooooo very wrong. 

So now you have to have the talk to straighten it all out.  You have to be the wretched, rotten, douche bag of a person that lays it on the line because even though you did NOTHING differently, you are somehow to blame for another person being hurt.  One that you happen to care about, by the way.  One who you consider a very, very good friend.  Think that's going to go down the perverbial drain????  Oh the drama - anyone who knows me knows how much I hate drama.  I left all my drama in North Carolina - his name is Ray Bray (no, I have no idea why anyone would name a child that).  He's someone else's drama now (did ya' hear - he's engaged a fourth or fifth or maybe even sixth time- who really knows how many - to get married for the third time?!?!?!?!? LOL).  So here we go.... let's be the asshole who has to ask the tough questions like "why did you think things were going to change" and shit like that.  Now you're the jackass.  You're the heartless bitch who has no feelings.  But really.... you do.   

You know what?  I don't think a man and a woman can be just friends and only friends.  There.  I said it.  Are you happy now? 

Isn't that a song?

Stick A Fork In Me - I'm Done

It's been a while.  Okay.... it's been 2 years.  Sue me.  I didn't understand how I was going to use the whole blogging world back then.  I thought at first, I'd use it to keep friends and family updated having moved from North Carolina to New Jersey.  It's tough to keep up and keep in touch - keep everyone who wants to know informed of what's going on.  Not that I have an exciting life.  Hellfire - I'm boring as shit!  I don't have a boyfriend, I don't have a band, I don't go out..... but hey - I have an apartment, a dog, and a job.  So don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining - I'm just saying, exciting I am not. 
Anyway.... after two years of doing nothing with this I've decided after a particularly aggravating day (which I will surely get into at a later point in time), that I'm going to use it to vent.  Or write whatever the hell I want.  I can drop the F-bomb (that'd be fuck, for all you good, non-swearing people) because if you know me, you know it IS one of my favorite words.  Yeah, yeah, I know - I'm a girl.  It's foul.  What can I say?  You don't like it, don't read my blog because I'm sure you'll see it here. 
I digress..... I can say anything I like here, right?  Bah, I'm sure something will come back and bite me in the ass or I'll piss someone off (probably a lot of someones) but you know what?  Fuck it.  I'm writing what I want.  At least I'm not posting naked pictures of myself on the world wide web.  Right?

So I've been gone a while.  Should I get you up to speed on my life?  Yeah, I know, I'm long winded but I'm pretty sure I can do this in a relatively short paragraph..... here we go:
 
I stayed with my parents for 8 months until we drove each other nuts, got a job in what seemed like a wonderful establishment, found myself a great little (dog-friendly)apartment 2.5 miles from said job, found a boyfriend, broke up with boyfriend but continued to not date him, fell in love with ex-boyfriend while not dating him, stopped seeing ex-boyfriend all together once completely and utterly in love with him, realized the wonderful establishment I thought I'd found was really Hell in disguise and my boss was Satan's psychotic sister, found a band that I stayed with for 6 months until I realized that they were never going to put an equal amount of effort into it as I was and therefore, never get out of the drummer's basement, lost my 20 year old nephew to a horrible and sudden accident (we probably won't talk about that here), formed a couple really good friendships with a couple really good people, searched long and hard until I found THE perfect place for me to work, where I am still very happily employed, and...... oh, that's it.  I did it!  One semi-short paragraph.  And you didn't think I could.

Well that's it for now - it's late and I need to eat some dinner.  Until next time (when I'll tell you why today was particularly aggravating)....

Oh.... goodness.... Harrison is 5 1/2 years old (turning 6 at the end of November) and he is happy.  He spends half his time with Poppe and Yaya (my parents) and the other half, with me.  Every now and again, he even gets to go down the shore for a bit.  No matter where he is, he is loved and spoiled.  I must remember to post how he went from howling for three hours until Yaya let him go upstairs and into my room (only) to having run of her entire house.

Peace!

I'm Just A Singer In A Rock 'N Roll Band

It's Saturday night and my brother doesn't want to sit in the house any more so we decide to go to The Melting Pot for dessert (fondue..... YUM). I'm up in my room getting ready to go and I hear music from the local carnival (mind you, my new town is one square mile). I put my ear by the open window and hear "Still Of The Night" by the Five Satins and then "Back In The USSR" by the Beatles. I'm thinking "that sounds like my old band" which consisted of my high school music teacher, English teacher, and three other alumni. They sang a lot of oldies (doo wop) - four and five part harmonies - the most fun I've had in any band I've been in. So Matty and I leave and I make him do a drive by so I can see if it's them or not. Mind you, I haven't spoken to any of them since I moved six years ago. We drive by and there's no one playing so I figure they're on a break - or whoever it was. So I take a walk into the carnival. I see both of my old teachers standing up by the stage and walk up to them and say "how are me two favorite teachers?". WELL.... they were so happy to see me and I was just blown away. What happened next was just a whirlwind. One of the teachers walked away and came back with the other three alumni and they thought it was crazy that I was back in town considering they had just gotten back together. They told me I had to sing - like right then - and of course, I agreed. It was insane. I sang "my song" - "Please Mr. Postman" and it was like we never parted ways. It was so great. I couldn't stop smiling. In fact, I don't remember the last time I was so genuinely happy. The welcoming I received from all of them just by being back in town was overwhelming and absolutely incredible. I couldn't have felt any more loved at that moment.

Well, my song was over and I left the stage (and was told not to leave town) and as I was waving goodbye, I got waved up to the stage and was told "practice is on Tuesday at 7:00pm". And just like that, I got my old band back. I don't think I stopped smiling for the rest of the night. Life just didn't get any better at that point.

The Electronic Fence

I called Hidden Fence and the next day a man was in my yard to install the electronic fence for my dog. He needs to be able to go hang out in the yard and be safe. My Wilmington home has a fenced backyard but here in New Jersey, there is none. And since this is where I'm living, we make the proper adjustments. It's more for my mom. When I return to Corporate America, I want it to be as easy for her as possible to help me care for her new security system. :) All she'll have to do is open the door and Har can hang out in the yard for as long as he likes.

So now comes the training for the fence. Now Harrison has his Canine Good Citizen Certification with the AKC (American Kennel Club) so he is very well trained but I've never used an electronic collar on him for anything. And, the reason he is CGC certified is because he was going to be a certified Therapy Dog - only certain dogs have the right temperament to do this and Harrison was always a very sensitive pup. Well, hell fire! That collar was on 2.5 out of 10 - extremely low (I put it on myself and walked near the flags)... he goes near the perimeter of the yard and gets zapped and you'd think we were killing him! The crying and jumping - all fours came off the ground - and that was the FOURTH time he got zapped. It's now Day 3 and this dog will not walk anywhere near those flags and I've not moved the setting from 2.5 even though I was advised to do so. Yesterday, the neighbor's dog came into the yard and Harrison walked slowly toward him, got a zap and said "Pft - you're SO not worth it" and turned around and came back. I know they say I should turn that collar up but can you imagine if he got zapped with it on, say, 5? I think the neighbors might call the cops at that point.

The Big Move

On Tuesday Sept 8, the day after Labor Day, at 2:15 in the morning, I loaded my dog in the Penske truck that was parked in my driveway and we started our 10 hour trip from Wilmington, NC to New Jersey, my beautiful home getting further and further with each passing mile.... but Harrison was there by my side, ready to take on whatever adventure came our way. We should have the same enthusiasm for life as dogs. Even when it seems things can't get any worse, a car ride will cure all your worries.

12 hours later (I had to nap) we arrived at our destination, car in tow, to my welcoming parents. If I've learned one thing over the last six years, it's that husbands and friends will come and go but your family is there to stay and they'll never let you fall (not even at age 40 and you need to move back home... with your dog... and all your crap).

That was a little more than a week ago and I'm just about all unpacked and settled into my room. I talked the lady of the house into letting the dog upstairs, but only in my room. It only took three hours of barking and howling while we tried to sleep for that compromise to take place (way to go, Har!). The bed is nice and high and he sleeps under me every night. He's happy, I'm happy, my parents sleep with no howling so they're happy.