Should I stick it out?

I'm coming to you with a situation for which I need advice.

A few years ago, I met a Guy. He was honest with me pretty early on about his feelings for me. He really wanted us to be together. I'll admit, I was scared. But there were other complications as well, and I wouldn't date him. We had our ups and (some serious, serious) downs, but we came through it all as friends. Very good friends, in my opinion.

After graduation, we each moved on to new cities. Neither of us knew anyone where we were. We spent hours on the phone with one another each night. Guy still wanted us to be together. I still refused.

One night, after several days of no phone interaction with Guy (which was incredibly unusual), I called him. He told me he was dating a Good Friend. I couldn't tell if Guy was telling the truth or yanking my leg.

Good Friend and I had known each other for at least four years at this point. She was there through every movement of the whole Guy saga. She'd offered advice when I was trying to decide what to do about him. She knew all the dirty details.

I called Good Friend when I got off the phone with Guy. With a quivering voice, she confirmed that they were together.

I'd like to say all was well with Belle's world after this. It was not.

Friend Loss #1

Guy stopped calling me. He stopped returning my calls. He stopped e-mailing me. Contact went from nearly-constant to nearly-non-existent. I missed talking to him. I didn't appreciate the change. I told him as much. He made half-hearted gestures toward maintaining contact for a bit before stopping again. I was hurt to have lost another friend to the all-consuming Relationship, but I could see (or can now see) reasons that we couldn't really maintain a friendship.

About a year ago, Guy came to D.C. for business, and we hung out one night (with Travel Buddy serving as "chaperon"). I was reminded that night of several reasons I had refused to date Guy. Aside from an apologetic call from him the next day, we haven't spoken since. Even though he was once a very integral part of my daily life, I rarely even think of him now.

Friend Loss #2

When Good Friend started dating Guy, there was a general buzz of disapproval from our mutual friends. The primary reason was that Good Friend went from social butterfly/life of the party to relative recluse overnight. Since then, I have reasons to believe she's gotten better about maintaining ties and such.

Except with me, that is.

I was recently reminded that she tossed out an incredibly lame excuse the last time I was in her town and wanted to meet up with her. The reminder came in the form of her ignoring my attempted contact when I was recently in her town again.

Then I remembered the last time I saw Guy. And the fact that Good Friend called no less than 2,974 times in the few hours we spent together (with a chaperon, dammit!). And I started to feel hurt. And a little pissed off.

Having known Good Friend for more than five years now, she's been there for the retelling of a good many of my exploits. She was there to see me devastated when I found out -- a year after the fact -- that some guy I'd drunkenly kissed at a party had a girlfriend at the time who promptly dumped him as a result of our little show. And she was there to hear me vent my anger toward a gorgeous FWB when I found out he had a girlfriend the whole time we'd had our, ahem, arrangement. She was there to comfort me after I shot down a guy I'd longed to be with for months because he started dating someone else and then tried to put the moves on me.

So, suddenly, I'm wondering, what the hell? She doesn't trust me? Have I ever tried to move in on a friend's man? Um, no. Do I even want one someone else has? Also, no. And she knows this. Or she should.

Still, I suppose, things are tricky with the whole Guy situation, considering his feelings for me in the past and her knowledge of those feelings. But the two have been dating for almost two years now. They live together, for fuck's sake, and I live more than a thousand miles away. I don't contact Guy (nor does he contact me). I don't even have his contact information anymore. She has nothing to be worried about from me.

So why can't Good Friend and I remain friends? You know, the kind of friends who take one another's phone calls. The kind of friends who actually want to get lunch together when they're practically within spitting distance after months (years?) of separation.*

My questions for you, dear readers, are several. Do I keep my mouth shut or say something about this? If so, what? If not, do I sit silently and hope that one day I'll be able to rejuvenate my friendship with Good Friend, or should I do myself a favor and consider it a lost cause? Is asking for some form of relatively reliable contact asking too much? Is wanting to see her for a few hours when we're in the same ZIP code asking too much? Am I being unreasonable?

I need answers!

Let me reiterate something before I end. I know I'll probably have dissenters, but I'm throwing it out there anyway. Whatever feelings I might have had for Guy are distant memories now. Like I said, I barely think about the guy. Whatever issue I may have had at the beginning of Guy and Good Friend's relationship are long gone. By all accounts (not firsthand, of course) the two are happy together and will probably remain that way for many moons to come. I wish them all the happiness and luck a couple can handle.


* I've spent time with her parents more recently than I've seen her, for crying out loud.

On The Southern Homestead

After last Wednesday evening's tears, I managed to make it all the way to the Southern Homestead on Friday without shedding a single one. The visit was mostly good, despite my dread.

I started out keeping notes. The first few looked something like this:

17 minutes after arrival

Little Bro: I need to get me one of them Vietnamese wives. (In front of his wife, and referencing my cousin's new wife, Asian Bride.)
Belle: Asian Bride isn't Vietnamese.
Little Bro: Well, what is she then?
Belle: Chinese.
Little Bro: I need to get me one of them Chinese wives...

36 minutes after arrival

Sister-in-Law: The Mexicans are everywhere now. We were at a gas station the other day and saw a whole school bus full of 'em.

48 minutes after arrival

Sister-in-Law: We even got Vietnamese working at McDonald's now. You don't know whether to order a hamburger or shrimp fried rice.

12 hours after arrival

Belle: How do you like living in New Southern Town?
Aunt By Marriage: It's a little dark. (laughs)
Belle: (Utter confusion... Is New Southern Town mountainous? Does it lack street lights?... ??? ... Ohhhhhhhh...)
Aunt By Marriage: But they're good people. They're good people...

Yeah... I just had to stop. I mean, I would've spent the whole time I was there scribbling furiously. Even my cousin who married Asian Bride was spouting homophobic BS the whole time.

My favorite exchange of the trip?

Uncle Smartass: How do you like the D.C. area?
Belle: I really like living there.
Uncle Smartass: Yeah, it's a good area... except that it's giving you liberal ideas.
Belle: Well, actually, Uncle Smartass, somehow, despite coming from this family and this state, I managed to develop those liberal viewpoints all by myself before I moved up there. I think I should have my DNA checked...
Obese Cousin: What you need to do is see a therapist. (laughs)

I wanted to point out that the most effective therapy I found came in the form of moving 1,004.30 miles away from the Southern Homestead. Instead, I bit my tongue and just smiled sweetly at Obese Cousin. There is no point arguing or defending my views to these folks. It will do absolutely no good, and I know that. If I want to maintain anything resembling family ties with these people (which I'm ambivalent about, by the way), I'm the one who has to play nice.


Other than those things (and all the similar/redundant incidents I didn't bore you with), the weekend was good. I got to see Father and his side of the family, The Moms, a family with whom I was really close, and my best friend from high school. I spent time with my adorable nephews and even got in a little shopping on The Moms' dime. I came back a little worse for the wear physically (oh, sun, how you torture me!), but mentally as sound as I was before (which may not be saying much...)

It's nice to be back.

Play Ball!

Amber: Ms. Stoeger, my plastic surgeon doesn't want me doing any activity where balls fly at my nose.
Dionne: Well, there goes your social life.
- Clueless, 1995

Have I mentioned that some moron called Belle agreed to play softball with a rec team this year?

This was a bad idea for a plethora of reasons. The first of which is that I was always that kid who got pegged with the ball in gym class. Always. The second of which is that, up until two weeks ago, I smoked about a pack of cigarettes a day. Third: That little thing we call hand-eye coordination? ... Practically nonexistent.

Oh, and have I mentioned I know nothing about baseball? I mean nuthin'. Two years ago, when Roommate and I had just met, she invited me to a baseball game. Three or four batters into the first inning, I turned to her and asked (in all seriousness), "Who is that guy standing behind the catcher?"

Ummm... yeah...

So anyway... when I was first asked to join the team, I tried to beg out. I told them how terribly uncoordinated I am. I told them about my lack of knowledge about the sport. To no avail. They needed female players. So Roommate and I signed up.

Apparently, my teammates are somewhat masochistic. They play "to have fun," they say, but we suck so horribly that we're getting slaughtered every time we step on the field. Even though the team isn't quite up to par, I am, as feared and predicted, the worst player by far.

I outdid myself in this week's game though, I must say. After being hit with no less than four pitches* during the first inning, our team came in and I stepped up to the plate to bat.

First pitch: foul
Second pitch: strike
Third pitch: I hit the ball as hard as I could. Through some miraculous (read: logical-trajectory-defying) action, I was immediately smacked in the nose and upper lip with the ball.

Oooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuch!

Painful and humiliating. Now that's my kind of fun...

* They usually have me playing catcher because I'm so freakin' wonderful at everything else. Of course, I can't catch, either...

I should know better by now

Walking through the lobby of my office this afternoon, I hid the tears behind black sunglasses, thankful that my latest purchase was larger than the shades I'd chosen in years past. George, the security guard who usually engages me in a few moments of small talk as I exit the glass-enclosed lobby each afternoon, was distracted by a man in charcoal suit leaning on his desk with both elbows. I managed to avoid eye contact with quick steps and a strategically-timed hair flip.

As the revolving door turned me through to the too perfect sunshine of the too perfect evening, I muffled a sob. Fifty-four. Fifty-five. Fifty-six. I focused on counting my steps and keeping a straight face as I passed the flower-laden meditation pond. When my foot hit the second step in the parking garage stairwell, my vision blurred to blindness, and I had to stop and wipe away the tears before moving on.

In the safety of my car, the sobs flowed freely as I leaned on the steering wheel for support like a distraught heroin on the silver screen. I collected myself enough to set out for home, but the tears didn't cease.

I cried for a potential loss in the fast-approaching future. For the lack of certainty in my career choices. For the absence of a shoulder on which to let my tears. But, primarily, for the things I endured in the Southern Homestead. For the scars I still carry. The scars I fear I will always carry. For the fast-approaching revisitation of the crime scenes. For the silence. For the lack of closure. For the things I fear are happening now and feel I can do nothing about.

Belle: (to Roommate less than 48 hours ago) I'm not typically one who drinks to drown my sorrows.

And, yet, tonight I drove at least two miles* out of my way during rush hour to purchase the whiskey necessary to do just that. For the last three hours I've been catching up with old friends and gardening and cooking and blogging and hanging out with my ferocious hunter of a cat. But I've primarily been working on making that whiskey disappear. And I've nearly accomplished my goal.

Oh, the weekend at the Southern Homestead should be the best ever.

* I'm sure there's a liquor store closer than that, but I've been on the outs with liquor lately and haven't noticed the actual location. How sad is that?