Friends

I guess the summer being over really caught up to me. I hadn't realized how much I had slacked off with everything. I was a total beach bum for most of the summer and then it hit me. I had no choice but to wake my ass up and get back to work. Anyway, at work, these chicks are at it again with arguing back and forth. I have totally removed myself from the situation entirely. I don't want to hear them complain about each other anymore, and I told them so.

I figured it out last year, I can not be everybody's therapist. It was starting to get to me. I have always been the one who appeared to have it all together - the strong one. I was always the one everybody came to for advise or used as a shoulder to cry on. It became too much. You know how it is when someone else's drama becomes yours? You know the feeling? You are having a wonderful day, the phone rings. They tell you their sob story. You hang up and now your day is all fuqed up. All of their negative energy has now been projected on you. It felt like I was going to have a total melt down. If I was going to be depressed and stressed, geez at least it could be my own drama. So, last year I was like fuq it, I'm not listening to it. Sorry folks, but the shoulder you all love to cry on has left the building. From then on I made up my mind, I was only going to dealing with my own drama. Man oh man, the friends just started dropping off the face of the earth. In total there are like 4 people who I don't even associate with anymore. Hey, I'm fine with it. Those are what you call fair weather friends. They like to lean on you for emotional support and then when your chips are down, guess what? They are no where to be found. I have had some very strange people come into my life. Weirdoes to say the least.

This one girl, she was so angry all the time. Every time I talked to her she was cussing somebody out for something. So anyway, we were suppose to meet some of our other friends over in NYC. She offered to drive. Mind you, I was a bit reluctant to go in the first place, but she begged me. We get all the way there, pay $20 to get in the joint. We see our other friends. The music is jumping. I'm sipping a rum and coke. I'm in the middle of the dance floor getting my groove on with this 6 foot plus cutie. We weren't even there for fifteen minutes before she's tapping me on the shoulder saying she's ready to bounce. I'm like what? Are you nuts? Yes, she was nuts. I tried to figure out what was wrong. All she kept saying was nothing...then everything. The entire ride back home, she's cussing out the traffic and driving like a maniac. I'm just sitting there in the passenger seat clinching my seatbelt and praying that I make it home safely. I made it home and vowed to cut that fool loose immediately and I did.

This other friend....errr ummm associate, there were signs from the beginning. Six years prior to meeting her she lost twins - due to a birth defect. When I met her she was a single professional woman in her mid 30's but she wanted to have a baby really bad. Then finally she found out that she was pregnant. She was ecstatic. I was kinda happy for her too. Then the drama started. She started referring to the guy who had supposedly impregnated her as the sperm donor because he claimed that the baby wasn't his. Typical Maury Povich. Four months into the pregnancy a new baby's daddy emerged. Yep, Sperm Donor #2 moved in. They planned to marry, that is up until she awoke one night to find him smoking crack in the bathroom. The baby was born. A year later, out of the blue Sperm Donor #3 appears. I couldn't believe it! This dude played daddy to the hilt. It was amazing. Ok, so finally maybe she had found the real baby's daddy and would live happily ever after. But nope, Sperm Donor #3 hadn't donated the sperm after all, he was too busy donating it to some guy named "Steve". Unbelievable. Two more years pass and within that time period she must have been pregnant 10 times and miscarried 20. UnFugginBelievable! How many men had she slept with unprotected? Was she just delusional after having miscarried nearly ten years earlier? My breaking point with her was when she asked me to meet her for lunch. When I got there she shows up with some flamboyant dude wearing a fish net muscle shirt --both nipples pierced. No lie! She introduced him as her fiance and the father of her unborn twin sons. She even had her daughter calling this dude daddy. WTF?

Anyway, I guess I told those experiences because out of all the people I've ever met in my life, I still have two very good friends who I have known for just about all of my life. One I met when I was 6 years old and the other I met when I was 8. Yes, throughout the years, we've had our emotional highs and lows. But it wasn't crazy highs and lows. It wasn't one sided. And to me, that is what friendship is all about - a give and take. I've learned when to listen and when to remove myself.