do the next right thing

for the past few days. The most tumultuously dramatic friendship I’ve ever been involved in.

After a voicemail she left me a few weeks ago, I knew “that’s enough”. (Something I should have concluded a year ago). She said the friendship was ‘broken’. Although we both already knew that, it was the first time I heard her say it that way, and sensed the tiniest hint of sadness (I could be wrong). But then she went off in the normal direction and went on and on, escalating to saying things that were completely unfair. That has been a pattern when I somehow set her off and she gets worked up. Something in me tells me it isn’t all true, but there is always SOME truth in what another says, right?

Anyways, for once, I did not go try to sort it out. I didn’t do anything wrong. A week later she called (I was afraid to answer) but she hung up without leaving a message.

We talked once (in person) since, and you would think that it hadn’t happened at all. There was no apology, or even reference to the voicemail. It was like I was talking to a different person. But besides that, I’ve stuck to staying away.

Yet, now I’ve found out she’s angry I’m avoiding her. I just don’t get it at all. I’m doing what she asked. I think she’s not used to someone ‘listening’ to what she says, and respecting the sentiments.

I’m surprised when someone calls or writes to me… I never expect anything. So someone being angry that I’m staying away is something I just cannot begin to understand. And why ‘anger’??? I wonder what ‘rule’ I’m not following now…

It is/was not a healthy friendship at all. I’m really unsure if there is a ‘next right thing’... at least at this time… (I care a great deal, but we seem to need some respect added to the mix…).

so I’ll never really finish, but it’s in my awareness everyday.

this week to “be there” for people. Sacrifices made; promises kept.

I came across Elmo in front of Ozzie’s coffee shop in Brooklyn-Park Slope-on this day back in 1994. Groundhog Day. He was tied up in front with an “adopt me” sign round his neck and, as would always be the case with him, he was attracting a small crowd because of his complete and utter desperation to love someone. He was less desperate by the end of his life, but this craving never completely left him.

I don’t know what came over me when I saw him; he was skin and bones, matted silver hair, covered with mange, a funny long body, the deep black eyes of God. I had recently discovered I was pregnant. I don’t know. I don’t think he showed me any more attention than he did anyone else he was trying to hurl himself at and devour with dog love. I went into Ozzie’s and found the woman and little girl who were with the ‘adopt me’ dog. Nueva, they called him. New. They had picked him up near Prospect Park. He was running wildly from person to person. Searching, of course, for me.

They couldn’t keep him. I decided the woman seemed nutty. I had to take him. It was the right thing to do. I pretended to myself I would find him a home. I began telling myself elaborate lies about who might be interested in him. Oh my God—I’m pregnant; I can’t have two dogs! When I got him to the vet, everyone in the waiting room told me not to admit to my husband I had taken him by choice. My husband’s going to kill me! I plunked down my credit card. If this dog had mange, he couldn’t come into the house with Moondog, my poor, unsuspecting Westie.

I named him Elmo, after my belly. Elmo was the guardian of my reproductive life; he saw me through the miscarriages and the births and took every single nap I had to take. And when the last child of three was walking and had truly taken hold of the world, he died. In one day, a disc ruptured into his spinal column and he was almost completely paralyzed. I sat on the floor with Moonie guarding us, holding Elmo, my silver dog, falling for the last time into his black eyes and whatever special spirit had come to guide my journey into motherhood.

That was October 21, 2002. Sometimes, his whole body wagging with joy, he comes to me in dreams. I miss him still.

The next right thing would be to bring my youngest to pre-school, but we’re blowin’ it off! I can’t wait till next year when they all get on the bus together-I so DONE with pre-school. The next right thing is taking stuff to goodwill, getting S. to the doc, buying sneakers, always cleaning, going for a run, going to get more green tea, going to the hosp. for volunteering, bringing A. to the orthodontist, always dealing with dinner-okay I’m tired,now.

I’m hugely resistant to everything, and it seems especially things that will have a positive effect.

Get this little daisy off to pre-school.

to the sublime.Let’s start with the ridiculous—the house looks like a bomb went off. Time to step away from the computer.

happens to be to go upstairs and check my daughter’s hair for lice. Lucky me!

It’s really gratifying to feel like I’m doing my best everyday. This feeling doesn’t come over me too often and I wonder if it isn’t closely linked to being less harsh with myself.