I know my blog often focuses on friends. It is because my friends are something I prize the most in my life.
My friends seem to 'get' me more than most people do. I know you are thinking - duh, that's why they are your friends. But it is more than just that. So much more really. I am luck that in my life I have had the chance to collect so many wonderful people in the patchwork of what makes me me.
From the time I was a small child I was lucky to have a best friend with such a different upbringing and yet so much the same. She was a private school evangelical northerner. I was a small town come as you are kid. Now she is a Mommy, married to a rock star, and a killer hair stylist.
First grade brought on my first encounter with Baptists. My best friend kept asking if I was 'saved'. My response was "from what?" She also was the first kid I knew to see rated R movies. In high school we were inseparable. In fact it was rumored that we were lovers because you rarely saw one of us with out the other - despite the fact that I lived a hour away. She too is now a Mommy, and a Tattoo artist.
I moved schools in 4th Grade - I needed to start over with who I was. I couldn't be the same easy to push around kid. My life had changed. My parents got divorced. My life as I knew it was turned inside out. I was emotionally scarred from the experiences form just a few years. I didn't want friends. I had two best friends in other places. I'd be fine. To this day I don't remember how, but I made friends with the quietest girl in class. Her family took me in as one of their own kids. In my opinion this is what saved my life. I was so hurt and angry that with out these people in my life looking back I think I would have imploded. This friend is now a Wife, Librarian, and Musicologist.
Again I changed schools. Now at 14, awkward and alone. A guy who played trombone, equally awkward befriended me. He helped me thru those early years of dating with a male perspective and trusted friend for support. He is now working his dream job and a husband.
G joined the Navy, I moved literally halfway across the country to be with him. Alone, no friends other than G. One guy who was in his boot camp division showed me respect. Not a overture of respect, just that you would give any human but it was something I did not get much of in that part of the country. It was different. This respect changed over the years but never dwindled. We went from acquaintances, to friends, to something so much more. We became family and then some. We comforted each other in the depths of pain, fought like cats and dogs, and all the while never stopped caring for one another. Of all my friends he probably knows the whole me the best. He is now a rising star for a major company, new Uncle, and the best Guy friend I have ever had.
As a Navy wife you dont often find other wives you click with. As a matter of fact there was only one that I really clicked with. She is the peas to my carrots. Both of us suck at keeping in touch but if ever needed we would be there for each other and we both know it.
After moving home I was seriously missing my friends back east and feeling very fish out of water-ish. A unlikely pair of myself and someone I lovingly refer to as a princess (tho she adamantly deny this.) has forged another bullet proof friendship where we can pretty well speak our mind so long as we do not do it with a venomous intent.
I know I have so many other friends I am not listing here and I mean this as no slight. A; I am growing tired, B; I have another point I wish to make.
People often comment on my amazing memory. Admittedly it is usually like a steel trap. Save one thing. I have almost zero memory of my home life as a small child - other than the very bad things. I can remember no good times with Darrell, or my Mother for that matter. I know this bothers my mom.
Now that I am again in contact with Darrell he is casually tossing around terms like 'sweetheart', and 'I love you', and 'dad'. This stings in ways I cannot express. Its not a sharp pain like a slap. It is a dull festering wound. The time for terms like that would be in the past. Some where around the time my memories start would have been ideal. Now it just feels like too little too late.
He wants to see me. Why? To batter? To abuse? I am not the frighted child I was. In many, many ways I want things to go back to the way they were. It was easier. Simpler. I avoided him. Period. After I served him with the restraining order when I was 17 I was done. For nearly 15 years I have had these worries and questions locked away in a box. This was the part of life I just didn't deal with. I don't like sorting thru this now.
Last I saw him he tried to reminice about my childhood. All I could say was "I don't remember that" to each thing he brought up. Maybe that made a point. probably not.
I put these things together in one post to illustrate how wonderful my friends are and how each of them has helped shape who I am. And also to illustrate how you cannot choose your relatives. I have many who are amazing... I also have some I really doubt I would miss.
I don't have many super close friends. You know who you are. If I call you, txt you, or invite you out you fall in this category, in all reality if I gave you this link you are a given. This is my virtual living room. I don't keep secrets in life but here you are likely to hear more than if we only hang out in public. Likewise once you fall in this category it is almost always a life sentence. I don't loose friends easily and if you and I have a falling out I am done.
