Worn out places, worn out faces

Stuff happens and I do a lot of processing. Or at least that's what Marin says. She also says that I, like her, am a stuffer. As in stuff those feelings into a closet in one's mind to be dealt with another day. But that's another post. This is the stuff that I forgot to include yesterday. I don't know why. Perhaps I needed to let it marinate some more.

Last week Hilly wrote a post about friendship. Reading it, of course, brought some of my recent questions to the forefront of my mind. I've never made a list; perhaps I should. Sure there are things that irritate the hell out of me but for some people, I will forgive them these things. And perhaps that makes me an idiot.

Over the last month I have seen people act in ways in which I would have never expected. No, that's the wrong word. Crap! I don't know the word but all I know that is that the support I have gotten from others has reminded me why I call them friends. And then there are the others.

A part of me questions whether it is time to end a friendship. I wanted to put the word friendship in quotes because I have started to wonder if the relationship is even that.

The weekend that my aunt died, I called this friend and told her what had happened. Two weeks later I had heard nothing from her -- and a mutual friend had even asked during that two week span if I had heard from this other friend. Nope. When we spoke two weeks later, it was because I called. And I remember thinking, "It never dawned on you to call me to say, 'Hey. How are you doing?'" I didn't say this but I know that if I had called her on her shit, she would have felt bad and responded "properly." It's just that one almost always has to call her on her shit at times like these. And I'm tired.

Then I started thinking about how maybe just once more my mother had been right all these years. She has told me for many years that my friend was too self-absorbed to truly notice anyone else.

And so now I toy with the idea of walking away from a 35-year friendship. Because I think that my friend walked away years ago. Or maybe she wasn't ever really a friend in the way that I define it now. She is just someone with whom I experienced a great deal of my life.