Bev has been my friend for 27 years. Despite being 19 years older than me and the subject of much gossip over the years, we continue to be friends. "Best friends", she thinks, but the truth is, she doesn't know me nearly as well as she would like to think.
Many times around some of my other friends, she will hold center stage and go on and on about how she knows me better than anyone. Maybe I should feel flattered, but the truth is, at times it ticks me off just a smidge. I mean for crying out loud, she does everything but pee around me in a circle to mark her territory!
Truth is, I have been feeling for a while that the time had arrived, where for my own peace of mind, maybe our friendship should be contained to exchanging Christmas cards.
I dare not make a trip to the county she lives in without informing her first. If I do and she finds out about it, she gets all huffy and puffy and all but rakes me over the coals in a round about way.
When did she become my keeper? I might visit her more often if I didn't feel from the moment I entered her home that I had been taken hostage. Once she gets you there, she wants to keep you there. You mention leaving and she wants to know why. What do you have to do, or where do you have to go that requires you leaving? After listening, she will then decide if it is a legit reason to break free of her iron grasp.
While there, you are basically a captive audience. There isn't any such thing as conversation, it is listening, with an occasional, word, or two at the most of agreement.
She called Monday afternoon, just as I settled in on the sofa after taking something for an awful headache. I could tell by her tone she had "news", or something, "....I thought you would find interesting..." (9 times out of 10, I don't).
She asked what was wrong, and I told her. Now, a normal person would take that as a cue to get off the blooming phone...instead, she says:
"You just told me that you have a headache and you're trying to rest.....I guess I should be a good friend and talk to you later, but, I have so much to tell you and I know you will find it interesting."
She then proceeded to talk at break neck, MOTOR MOUTH,CHATTER BOX speed. When she FINALLY paused to take a breath, I did something totally unexpected and told her:
"I have a really bad headache. Is it possible to hear the rest tomorrow?"
Naturally she didn't like that at all,and was insulted, to which I say.....SO WHAT?
I was very busy Tuesday with my daughter and the GRANDS, and didn't talk to her. Oh, I could have when I returned home, but...I didn't want to. Ditto with yesterday, but she called me and I more or less resigned myself to it. An incoming call from her daughter, ended the call to me (THANK GOODNESS). She called back and I just couldn't bring myself to pick up the phone.
I don't want to hurt her feelings, even though she hasn't at any time in the past had a problem with hurting mine, up and leaving my life without warning or calling me out on the carpet for any number of things. I'm sure we all know people that expect you to play by a different set of rules than the ones they play by themselves. She is certainly in that group.
I flinch inside and out when I know she is on the phone. I want so badly to tell her:
Wanna know the reason that nobody comes to visit you or want to go places with you, or wants to chat with you on the phone....It's because you NEVER SHUT UP......! You have the biggest mouth of anyone this side of glory! It's all about you.....all about you. If I have to hear one more story about the way the piano player looked at you....I will PUKE! Plus.....you talk loud enough to wake the dead. Every time you call I turn the volume down to low, and I can still hold the phone away from my ear and hear every word you say.
Sometimes I think she is only using me as an audience of one. Someone she can ramble on to about all these strange dreams she has, about the piano player, about the man in Fla, about this..about that. All the while that big, fat mouth is running 90 miles an hour, I am screaming inside my head: SHUT UP.....SHUT UP.....SHUT UP....SHUT UP......SHUT YOUR BIG FAT BLABBING MOUTH!!!!! PIANO MAN AND FLA MAN HAVE BOTH TOLD YOU VERY CLEARLY THEY WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU....SO LET IT GO!!!!
Maybe it's time for me to add her to my: Letting It Go list!
Okay....maybe that is out of my system now.
Later Ya'll...^Belle^
