Just so we're clear ...

Yeah, I know, it's been a while. Sorry about that. John Lennon said that life is what happens while you're busy making other plans, and I've found that to be quite accurate.

What follows is a rant of the first order. It may or may not be coherent. It will likely contain profanity. If that isn't what you're after, then ta-ta, no hard feelings, seeya later. This is, after all, MY blog, and while you're welcome to visit me and peruse and all, it isn't promised that I'll give a rat's ass what you or anyone else thinks about what I scribble here.

Still here? Okay, then. Get in, sit down, shut up, and hold on.

I have a friend who hasn't always been my friend. She lives nearby, and her children are friends with my children. When she first moved into her house, we didn't get along AT ALL, and the fault for that lies with both of us. I've apologized, and she's apologized, and we've accepted each other's apologies, and life's gone on in a lovely way.

Lately, however (and by "lately" I mean in the last two to three months), she's not been the friend to me that I thought she was, and definitely not the friend that I try to be. I don't have a lot of mantras, but "A Friend Loves At All Times" is one of them. I chant that one so often that my children already know when it's going to come out of my mouth and fling it at me first in rather a pre-emptive sort of way. I've said it to this friend a hundred times just this summer, and she's chanted it back to me as well. The big difference? Only one of us has been living it lately, and I'll let you guess which it is.

Why is it that I say things in confidence and she feels the need to rent a fucking billboard and advise the world at large and in general? Why is it that she encourages me to confide when she's only going to runtelldat far and wide, without the burden of context or correctness? Where does she get off doing this to me?

Better yet ... why do I allow it to happen?

Ooh looka there, that's a fun question, isn't it? "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them." (Thank you, G. Smith, room D204, NEHS! All this time, I'd thought having to memorize that stupid soliloquy would never do me any good bar having to regurgitate it for a grade. I stand corrected.)

Yep, I can CHOOSE what happens next. I am not powerless. I can decide to allow her to continue running over me like I was a possum and she a semi. I can decide to deliver only short, clipped responses to her attempts to open some sort of dialogue. I can decide to remain friends with her, alter our friendship, or cut it off altogether (although I have the feeling that'd be an off-cutting rather along the Hydra lines, if you take my meaning). I can decide to abandon her and her manipulative, backstabbing ways. I can decide to forgive and/or forget.

First, though, I must decide what exactly it is that I mean by "a friend loves at all times". This will require introspection and pondering that I may or may not be prepared for just this instant. To be truthful, I am well and truly pissed off at her right now, and what I find most sad in this situation is that she wouldn't understand why no matter how I tried to explain it.

Yesterday, my child requested and received permission to go to the mall with this friend's daughter (we'll call her Suzie for now) and another darling of that age (let's call her Jane). While at the mall, they met up with some other friends, Suzie and Jane decided it would be fun to ditch everyone else and trot off to another shop, and so they did. When my daughter and the others went into the shop where Suzie and Jane were, Suzie and Jane ignored them all and fucked off somewhere else yet again. They later sent my child a text saying they were leaving, and proceeded to leave without her. YES, THEY LEFT MY DAUGHTER AT THE MALL.

All ended well, of course, because my child knows how to think for herself and doesn't get caught up in the lemming groupthink to which teenagers are so prone, but that doesn't keep me from getting royally cheesed. I got a text from Suzie's mom "just to let you know" that my child "decided" to stay at the mall. (Um, NO, your little bitch decided to be evil and wicked and mean and nasty.) I responded that I'd take care of it, and then got accused of not being myself, of being awful. What the blue bloody fuck kind of world does this need to be for that to be true? You may know, but I do not.

Right ... in keeping with the title of this post, I'll make a statement that will provide clarity to any who think they require it. This is true right this very minute, and may or may not remain so over time. Nobody puts Baby in a corner, and nobody gets to tack me down to anything when I've made up my mind otherwise.

You want to act like my friend? Fine. However, I can tell that an act is all it is, and I will respond accordingly. You don't get the best of me until such time as I decide you have earned it, and after the shit you've pulled, that may be ten minutes after never. When you figure out that making snide remarks behind my back, telling tales, spreading rumors, and stirring shit just for shit's own sake are not the way to be a true friend who loves at all times, let me know, and I'll reconsider. Believing your child is one thing ... being an active party to bullshit is something else entirely. For now, you've chosen an alternate path, and I can't stop it, so I'll just sit back and let you take it wherever it leads you. I reserve the right to point and laugh whenever the situation calls for such, and if I choose to applaud the cosmos when circumstances arrange themselves against you, you have no recourse but to go stare in your mirror to find someone to blame. I've poured out my soul and my substance to you, thinking you'd care, only to find that it's all for your perverse amusement. Forgive me for taking so long to figure out what an evil cunt you are ... it's my Pollyanna gene that leads me to want to believe better. The best part is that you'll never bother apologizing for disappointing me, because you'll never believe that anything was ever your fault.

In the meantime, go fuck yourself.