Howdy do, interwebbers. 

It's been a bunch of weeks since I blogged last, mostly because I wanted to give that ED/SAD writeup piece plenty of time in the top spot. It's been shared hundreds of times and the feedback has been lovely and amazing and super duper gratifying. In fact, while I received many many many emails about it (not to mention comments, tweets, FB messages, etc.) I only had to deal with two instances of slightly unpleasant feedback. Note here that I'm not saying negative feedback. Even the two instances of unpleasant feedback were relatively positive. I just wasn't crazy about the interactions. I'll explain.

In one case, the person didn't want to talk about the post at all, didn't want to share her own experiences or feelings in response, only wanted to talk about how "proud" she was of me for writing it. It was sort of... well, condescending, frankly. She gave the impression of being just so above it all. Lame. Especially since this person is totally caught up in her own disordered eating issues and completely unaware of them. But whatever. (Besides that, I just hate it when people who haven't helped me or contributed to my success in any way have the nerve to say they're "proud" of me. Yuck. Pride when you've done nothing to contribute is a bit a of a joke, in my opinion.) I smiled and nodded as is my wont. 

The other slightly unpleasant interaction involved someone who brought up the post, but then awkwardly trailed off saying she didn't know what to say about it. Seemed like she felt like I should be embarrassed about sharing too much. Probably because SHE felt embarrassed while reading it. Again, it's worth noting that this reaction ALSO came from a person who is body-obsessed and very invested in her own youth and thinness, so maybe that's part of it. She didn't have anything bad to say, but she made it clear the whole thing made her uncomfortable. She gave the impression that she thought her reaction was the "normal" one. I didn't explain to her that out of hundreds of responses, hers was the only awkward one. Again, I smiled and nodded. What else can you do, right? Poor thing.

To the rest of you, the ones who wrote and shared and basically just behaved like the rad, kind, wonderful people you are: thank you. And to the folks who said nothing because you had nothing nice to say: thank you too.

Life of late has been fairly domestic. I've been doing stuff like baking bread, believe it or not. (Used Mark Bittman's famous no-knead method. Came out kinda yeasty, but not bad.) Here's a photo of the dough, resting: 

I've also been trying to season a vintage cast iron pan I found at a junk sale.  I can't figure out anything about the brand, but I think the piece is pre 1940s because of the smooth finish. (House filled with smoke. So many black drips. Am going to have to start from scratch. Very depressing.) Here are a couple of photos of the pan before I began my failed refurbishing process:

Finally, I've been trying to get my house clean in a deep sort of way. You know, in a "I moved the fridge and washed under it" sort of way. When cleaning in this fashion, you come across some interesting items. Like REALLY old potatoes. At least, this is the sort of thing I come across. My ancient potatoes looked like this:

Cool, right? Alien-esque. 

Anyway. It's not much, but that's what's going on here. (Domestic adventures and little else.)  Talk soon. x

I feel like I've spent a lot of my life being a pushover. Someone asks me for something and no matter how I feel about it, I generally say yes because saying yes is easier than saying no.

Don't get me wrong -- this "don't say no" mentality has not resulted in me actually DOING an endless number of things I don't want to do. Rather, it's resulted in me being annoyed a lot of the time (and in some cases, in people becoming annoyed with me).

Let me explain.

First off, I have been known to say "maybe" to things when I really want to say no, which is something people catch on to after awhile. I also rely heavily on "excuses." My excuses are rarely untrue, but they are excuses nonetheless, and include the following:

I can't because ... I have a headache.
I can't because ... I am already committed to something else.
I can't because ... I will be out of town.

Excuses are wonderful things. They have often allowed me to say no without feeling like I was saying no. Saying "I can't" is so much better than saying "I won't" -- no guilt! When one of these excuses is given, the impression I hope to give is that I WOULD do the thing I'm being asked to do, that I WANT to do it, but that, through no fault of my own, I CAN'T. (So sorry!) For a crazy-face like me, who is ridiculous about saying no, this is wonderfully relaxing. Excuses mean I don't have to say no. Being unavailable is not my fault! No one can blame me, or be angry, or push back against my desires, because my answer is not about desires! Hurray! It's out of my hands!

I mean, I hate the fact that I suffer from a lot of serious headaches, but at least they get me out of things, right?

This behaviour is, to put it mildly, fucked up.

In my own defense, I will say that my experiences with saying no haven't been all that positive, and this hasn't helped matters. I mean, you've read the blog, you know my family is seriously cray cray, so saying no to relatives (or, you know, having feelings of any kind) has never been easy. But even with friends, even with acquaintances, it's been difficult. I don't like conflict. Or arguing. Yet, I feel dragged into conflict-based interactions whenever I try to assert myself. This is why I find it so much easier to default to a position of "yes" or even better, "I wish I could, but ..."

Don't believe me? Take, for example, a version of this exchange, which is exaggerated, but which I promise you, takes place regularly in my life:

Pushy Pusherman: Hey Jen! Can you help me with this thing? It's a great idea, right?"
Jen: Um, no. I can't. Sorry.
PP: "Don't worry, it'll be easy."
Jen: "Yeah... but still, no."
PP: "But it's a great idea! What are your reservations? WHY won't you do what I want?"
Jen: "Oh, lots of reasons... [insert at least one or two gentle ones, but never the most important reason which is I DON'T WANT TO.]"
PP: Those aren't good reasons! It's a great idea! I want you to do it because ... [insert reasons that are primarily selfish and do not take into account the fact that I ALREADY SAID NO.]
PP: So, you'll do it right?
PP: Right?
PP: I think you should Come on, do it.
PP: Keep an open mind. Let's brainstorm a way to make this work.
Jen: Sorry, but it just doesn't work for me, under any circumstances.
PP: I'm sure we can work this out. [Read: So I can get what I want. My feelings are more important than yours!]
PP: Doitdoitdoitdoit.
Jen: Okay ... maybe. We'll see. [Or worse-still - "yes."]

Inevitably, I end up doing things I don't want to do because of conversations that are just like this one -- conversations in which my initial "no" is flat-out ignored.

I don't know how to deal with these sorts of interactions. They leave me feeling resentful and frustrated. WHY should I have to explain myself, I wonder? Why don't people listen to me? What is unclear about the word no? Why are my feelings not taken into account? Why is the onus on me to give a REASON for refusing to do someone a favour? Why is a simple no so rarely enough?

These questions keep me awake at night, and again -- that's fucked up. Because you KNOW Pushy Pusherman isn't lying awake at night. Pushy Pusherman is sleeping like a baby because Pushy Pusherman is an egomaniac who almost always gets what she/he wants.

I suppose it's partially my fault. I give in. But I wonder, is there something about me that bullies can sense, just by looking? Do they know that if they push, push again, and then push some more, I will cave? How do they know? There seems to be something magical and intangible about me that screams, "Don't respect my boundaries, just push! I will give in eventually because I hate arguments and I'm always willing to put my own wants and needs behind the wants and needs of someone who's willing to fight me."

It must be at least partially my fault. I've set a precedent. And I've done it consciously, because sometimes, I find myself reasoning, "Well, this person is willing to be incredibly pushy, so it must really matter to him/her. I'm NOT willing to be incredibly pushy, so it obviously doesn't matter that much to me. I should give in. I mean, if I am to believe this Pushy Pusherman attitude, this person cares A LOT. My attitude says that this request is not all that important to me. Ergo, what I want must objectively be less important than what they want. I should give in." And give in, I do.

And then the endless lending of stuff, doing of favours, attending of events and maintaining of relationships that I don't give a shit about exhausts me and I end up feeling resentful and grumpy and put upon. I start getting more stress headaches, which (at least) gets me out of things for awhile and allows me to have a break.

This is a bad cycle, stemming, I suppose, from a variety of bad attitudes. And I've heard all the criticisms and little nuggets of wisdom before, so don't bother telling me I have to "put myself first" or "fight for what I want" or "be tough." Thanks, but that sort of advice is unhelpful and misses the point. I don't want to FIGHT for what I want. I don't want to fight at all. I want people to respect that what I want is valuable, that when I say no, I have my reasons, and that my feelings are important. Why should I have to FIGHT for that? WHY???

And don't tell me that this is just how the world works, because it's not. I respect other people's desires. When someone says no to me, I say okay. Unless something seems really objectively important above and beyond their feelings, or unless I feel the person saying no doesn't have all the necessary information, as far as I'm concerned, no means no. You don't have to tell me twice. This is not hard. All it takes is simple common sense to determine when something is important enough to push for and when pushing would simply be selfishness and a complete unconsciousness of anyone else's feelings on my part. I do it all the time, but many (many) more people out there seem to think their every little desire is ALWAYS of paramount importance. And unless you regularly sledge-hammer-forward the idea that other people, you know, exist, their attitude is always "me me me."  Where do these people come from? Who raises children to think of themselves as little centres of the universe? A lot of people, it would seem, because Pushy Pushermans abound.

But okay, I get it. I can't change other people, I can only change myself. So to begin with, what I'm wondering is this: How can I change that weird thing about me that seems to invite people to push into a thing that makes them instinctively understand that no means no. HOW?

Some progress has been made. A few years ago, when explaining to my friend Steve that I felt I couldn't stop hanging out with certain people (let's call them "friends") without offering a good explanation, he helped me understand that an explanation wasn't owed. "If you don't want to be friends with someone, don't be friends with them," he said. "If you don't want to argue about it, don't argue. The relationship isn't working for you, you've given [name redacted] notice that you wanted things to change, they've ignored you. What else can you do? Maybe they won't like it, but that's not your problem."

Finally, finally - something resonated. If I say no, and someone gets upset, that's not my problem. It's not even my fault! How they feel isn't more important than how I feel. And if I let the situation continue, I'm enabling them. I'm letting them continue to behave in the ways they have always behaved. I'm saying okay to a situation that works for them, but that does not work for me. I may choose to do that, and if so,  fine, but it hardly makes sense to complain about it if I do, right? RIGHT.

This revelation came, as I said, a few years ago. And at the time I thought, "I'm finally growing up!" Alas, while I got up the nerve to "unfriend" people and change some relationships as a result, overall, I'm still a pushover. And worse, I still feel guilty and upset about how people have responded to me putting myself first. When they've been angry, I've felt terrible. When they've argued, I've been contrite. In other words, I thought I'd experienced a revelation, and I thought significant progress would result, but all I'd really taken was a baby step.

Luckily, baby steps continue, and get steadier in time. In the last while, I've been a little better about asserting myself. I've been better about setting boundaries. At work, I've actually said the words, "I think that's above my pay grade." BAM! It felt great!

And WAY WAY more importantly, this happened: To a person who regularly says hurtful things to me, over the phone I said, "You know what? These things are hurtful. If you continue to say these things, and refuse to apologize, I'm not going to spend time with you anymore. Simple." Shockingly (although, why should I be shocked?) this has not gone over all that well. Hurty Hurtfulson told me to "let it go" and to "just stop being angry" etc., but wonderfully, happily, I didn't let her make me angry and I didn't give in! I calmly (okay, relatively calmly - my voice was shaking a bit) restated my position, which was this: "I'm not angry. I'm hurt. You are saying hurtful things. Stop or the consequence will be no contact with me." When she tried to argue again, cut her off, saying "Sorry, but this is the way it is. Deal with it." And then I hung up. And it felt GREAT. Great great great!!! It felt great to name my terms and be calm about enforcing them. Why didn't I do this sooner? Why wasn't I able to?

The experience was so positive, I've managed to keep the ball rolling. To those who regularly borrow things from me, I've started setting conditions -- simple, basic conditions, but never-before-verbalized. For example: "If you borrow something, I want it returned in the same condition it was in when you took it." In other words, if something was clean when borrowed, I want it clean when it's returned. (Simple request, right? But soooo hard for me to make. And you would not believe how often I get stuff back that is dirty.) As with Hurty Hurfulson, The Borrowers are pushing back. It's a new day and I suppose they're just not used to me setting terms, but instead of giving in when said Borrowers have presented reasons why they might not be able to meet my terms, I've been able to say "Sorry, but these are the conditions. You can borrow it, but I want it back the way I want it back. If you can't handle that, you can't borrow it. Simple." And I haven't felt panicked, which has been my default sensation in situations like this for years. If The Borrowers don't comply, and I have to say no in future as a result, that's cool. I think I feel okay with that.

So does this mean I'm finally growing up? Have I FINALLY fundamentally begun to understand what I can control and what I can't? Are my emotions finally catching up with my rational brain?

Want to ask for something or do something? That's up to you. If I feel like saying no or not putting up with it for any reason, that's up to me. You feel angry about that? Again, that's up to you. Letting your anger change my behaviour? That's up to me. It's. So. Simple.

I don't want to let the ball stop rolling on my new-found confidence in these matters, so any advice would be helpful. How do I keep saying no and keep feeling cool when people push back? Don't let me drop the ball on this one, blog-friends. This is a major step in my mental/emotional development.

Picture this: I'm 22. I'm in my first-ever "grown up and single" apartment in Vancouver. I am surrounded by the overwhelming IKEA packing detritus from one futon, four side tables, a small dining set, a desk, a dresser, a bookcase, a TV stand, and assorted sets of plates, glasses, pots, pans, knives and cutlery, bedding, towels, and a shit load of other stuff I can't remember. (I had nothing. I needed everything. And I bought that everything at IKEA and had it all delivered on one day.) That's how much crap there is around me.

So, I'm sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor, surrounded by the already scratched and dented framing of the bed I've now put together incorrectly twice (first, thinking it was upside down, I had to take it all apart and rebuild it right side up... only, having done that, I realized that I'd actually built it correctly the first time). Yay.

I have instructions, of course. The instructions look like this:

These instructions mean: Don't do this alone. You NEED HELP. Get a friend to help you! These instructions also mean: If you don't understand what to do, call IKEA.

Only, I don't have a friend. I do have an idiot boyfriend, but he's nowhere to be found. And I can't call IKEA for help because my cell phone battery is dead and the charger is lost amid all the moving boxes and aforementioned IKEA detritus. 

So I'm sitting on the floor of my sad little Jr. One Bedroom apartment, in the centre of what was supposed to be my perfect (albeit small) new bedroom, and I'm cradling my right hand, which is bruised green from 48 straight hours of turning reluctant allen keys ... and I'm crying. Mouth open, nose running, full-on crying.

I am crying for many reasons. I am crying because I don't think I can stand to take apart and rebuild my bed for a third time (why, God, why?). And I'm crying because my hand hurts like a mother fucker. And most of all, I'm crying because it seems entirely possible that I will not only NOT have a bed to sleep in tonight, but that I may never sleep in a bed again. I may, in fact, die from some sort of allen-key induced gangrene and the IKEA cardboard will absorb the smell of my rotting corpse, and no one will find me until I default on my rent, which may well happen, even if I DON'T die, because I spent every penny I had outfitting my apartment for my wonderful new life, which has so far consisted of nothing but moving-related trauma.

This is what happens when you try to move alone.

But this weekend, I helped my friend Emily move. And it was no big deal. I was one of many friends she had helping her out, and all in all, everything went smoothly. It wasn't particularly hard. It wasn't annoying. It didn't put me out. I had the time, I needed the exercise, and other than the part where I had to wake up at 8 am on a Saturday, it was pretty fun. Not unlike a social event, except with a practical, measurable purpose.

Moving is often cited as one of the absolute most stressful things in life. Right up there with divorce and being fired. But if you're not the person who's actually moving, if you're just helping out, it's really not stressful at all. Not comparably. And that's why you should do it. Because it's no big deal for the helper, but probably a VERY big deal for the helpee. I've been both, so I know this for sure.

Alone? Bad.

Together? Good.

It's pretty simple, actually.

Christmas eve and aaaaaaaaalllllllll's well!

Remember, no one can stop you from taking shots in the powder room, if you feel so inclined. Do what's right for you.

Have a good one, blah-og friends. I send you love, peace and Santa Claus. 

Hey all. Regular readers have noticed that Monday's post has been taken down. If you were lucky enough to read the comments section, I'm sure you already know at least some of the story. Let's just say: Holy drama, Batman! and leave it at that.

Now let's all take a moment to remind ourselves of what's important.

And actually, while we're at it, let's talk a little bit about comment moderation. For future reference, here's how comments on jenselk.com work:

I generally publish everything, as long as the person leaving the comment doesn't try to be anonymous. If you don't want your comment to be searchable in relation to your name, I'm okay with that, so using initials, leaving out a last name, etc. is generally not a problem. BUT if you don't submit a real/active email address (which is never published, only sent privately to the moderator) so that your identity is at least clear to me (remember me? the owner of the site?) then I might not publish what you have to say.

Furthermore, regardless of all this, I don't actually have an obligation to publish comments of any kind. Even mass market newspapers moderate comments, and there are no official moderation standards in place. Everyone uses a different system. My system is the one I've just explained to you above.

So let's all agree that if you've got a hate on, you're welcome to it. Hate on, my hateful brothers and sistas! But remember this key point: I'm not actually obligated to provide you with a hate platform. And let's also agree that it would be a little strange for me to provide you with a platform to hate on me, personally.
That would be weird, right?

Right.

Anyway, by all means, start your own site to trash me if you feel you must (that would be pretty impressive, actually ... like being famous!). But on this site (the one with my name on it, that I own) I'm the boss. Sorry kids.

My friend Nick's first child was born eight months ago.

Eight months ago, and I only managed to meet her last week.

I've had a gift for her sitting on my desk for ages - a small, blue elephant, purchased during the Christmas rush. Plush, of course. Friendly-looking. Adorned with a jaunty red bow about the neck (a sweet addition, if I do say so myself).

I was looking forward to handing it over. I was sure the baby would like it.


But nonetheless, as I drove across the city to Nick's house (way up in North York's east end, where he and his wife decided to settle in order to get something of a decent size that was at least semi-affordable), I thought to myself, 'this is what our friendship - no wait, our lives - have come to.'

Eight months to plan a simple visit.

And then I realized I'd forgotten the elephant at home.

Which, just, you know... figures.

Nick is what I'd call a good friend. A close friend. I love him, even though I only manage to see him only a few times a year (at best). But this is what most of my close friendships are like nowadays. Almost everyone I love best is at a distance, in a different city, or working a different schedule. We're all kept apart by the demands of young families, new partners, and business trips. We exchange sporadic emails that are lovely to read, but hellish to get around to writing, and catch sight of each other at weddings and christenings and that sort of thing, when we generally find about five minutes to talk before our relatives sweep us away. I receive (and send) the occasional nostalgic text, but we never talk on the phone. (Who has the time?)

And that's just the way it is.

That's being grown up and living far away and being busy with work and grocery shopping and exercise and family obligations and all of the general hoo-ha that goes along with being a (reluctantly) upwardly mobile thirty-something living in a major city.

It's related (somewhat) to the money issue I wrote about a few weeks ago. Mo' money, mo' problems, remember? We're too busy, mostly because we think we need more money. I think that's what it comes down to.

Like I said, that's just the way it is, but at times, it's hard to reconcile with what I remember.

When I was a kid, I would take four to six paperbacks out of the school library on Friday afternoon, just to ensure I'd have enough to occupy me over the weekend. I'd lie on my living room floor, paperbacks in a pile, bowl of snacks beside me, just killing time, for hours. I was often bored. I was never busy.

Were someone to call, I'd be ready, at the drop of a hat, to do whatever was suggested. I was always free.

And my fluid, free-time filled lifestyle continued all the way through university. Once, when we were both still students at Queen's, Nick called me up in the wee hours of the morning and said, "I'm going to Toronto. Want to come?" And 30 minutes later we were on the road. Three hours later we were in the city. And by nightfall we were back in Kingston. I didn't even have to think about it. He called and we went. That was the extent of our planning.

Now it takes us eight months to sort out a simple lunch.

And I'm not even popular! That's the real shocker. I'm well-liked  (I think), but no social butterfly. And compared to most people I know, I'm positively lousy with time. I work part time. I play sports for fun. We have no children and Nate is an academic, which means he's often at home. My life is shockingly easy, and still, I find myself saying no to half the things I'm invited to, and constantly apologizing for being absent. And at the very same time, I feel like I'm failing at being busy enough. It's mental. Mental, I tell you.

I'm not sure what my point is. I guess this is just something to work on. For the time being, I've visited with Nick and I've met the baby (adorable, chubby, sweet). But the elephant is still sitting here, on my desk, staring at me.

Judging me. I can tell.

Last night, I had a dream about high school. No big deal. Who doesn't dream about school from time to time? It's pretty common.

Sometimes, in my dreams, I've forgotten to graduate and have to go back. Occasionally, I have to sit an exam for a class I never attended. Once in awhile I'm in a school play, and can't remember my lines.

Pretty basic stuff, really.

School dreams are usually about stress. They suck, but I expect you're used to them.

The dream I had last night was not a school dream in the traditional sense. It was a dream about something that actually happened, something I hadn't thought about in years. A nightmare, really.

It was a dream about being Heathered.

That's how I like to describe what happened to me during my last year of high school. "I was Heathered," I say, laughing. I've never found a better way to explain the systematic destruction of my reputation and social life engineered by a small pack of girls who, once upon a time, I considered my closest friends.

We were an unusual group, I suppose. Smart, certainly. Or devoted to seeming so. We were girls who did our homework. Or rather, they were girls who did their homework. I never did my homework. If an assignment wasn't going to be graded, I just didn't see the point. My clique was full of brown-nosers, so I think this reflected badly on me right from the start, though we all got good grades.

In retrospect, I see how important our image was. We were so modern. So multicultural! So perfectly 1990s. Charoula was the prettiest (and the whitest -- not a coincidence, in my opinion). Sonia was the sweetest. Devyani was the richest (with mixed-race parents, like mine, but  hers were famous and had much more panache). Lucy was the artsy-est. (I heard she ultimately became some sort of art therapist. When you get to the end of the story, I invite you judge whether or not this is ironic.) 

I don't know what I was. Mixed race, I suppose, which was important in Canada at that particular moment. My mother is South Asian, hailing from Goa, India. My father is white. I filled a niche. The first time Lucy visited my home she commented, with some disappointment, on how "normal and Canadian" it was. She expected more "Indian stuff." I felt, at that moment, a slight shame. Though the decor certainly wasn't up to me, I had the sense that I was failing somehow. Failing to be "ethnic enough" and to fill the role they'd picked me for.


None of that matters, really. What matters is that I made two fundamental mistakes between 1996 and 1997. I got myself a boyfriend and, like an idiot, I fell in love. 

Matt was older, already in university. And though he was friends with my friends, and for a time, we all hung out as a group, he wasn't around in the day to day. And slowly but surely, the day to day changed.

I don't know who said what. I don't know who started what rumour or how they spread. On the surface, at least, nothing was especially wrong. My friends were still my friends, though they stopped calling me, and I found myself left out of plans and conversations more often than not. When I mentioned it (which I did, being unaware of subtlety and unable to read between the lines) the girls said straight out, that they felt we were "drifting apart." That I "didn't understand" them anymore. That we had "different values."

They were 17 and 18 and had, as people say, never been kissed. The dearth of romance in their lives was a regular topic of conversation. By contrast, I was 16 and in love with someone I thought I might actually marry. Ultimately, I think that's what this was about. "We just don't have much in common anymore," said Sonia, during one memorable lunch hour. It stung at the time, but I suppose she was right.

And then it got worse.

I became a "slut." There were whispers. A fringe-friend in a different grade said she'd heard something about me "hopping from guy to guy." It made no sense. I was in love! I was more than a year into my monogamous relationship! I've considered it, and I still don't really understand what happened, or why. I only know that it did.

I was a slut. I was branded.

Once, walking down the crowded hallway, someone actually coughed the word at me.

"Cough-Slut-Cough!"

And there was a burst of laughter.

Other things happened as well. The girls -- my friends -- gathered to telephone my boyfriend. (The Internet had yet to boom.) They each took a turn on the line. Why were they calling? They just wanted to warn him, they said, about me. Hadn't he heard what I was up to? Hadn't he heard who I REALLY was? They didn't want to cause any trouble, of course. But they cared about him, they said. They were calling for his own good.

I was sitting next to him on the sofa when this happened. He covered the mouth piece.

"It's your friends," he said. "You better pick up the extension."

I did. And we spent the next 15 minutes listening to my friends trash talk me.

When the call ended, we hung up and stared at each other.

"What the fuck was that?" he said. I didn't know what to say. I cried, I think. In confusion.

As the year went by and things got worse, I lived increasingly in a state of social fear, sweating constantly and making multiple trips to a little-used washroom in the school basement, where I stuffed paper towels under my arms in an attempt to keep the stains from showing. (I'm sweating right now, actually. I'm sweating just thinking about it.)

We graduated. The girls and I made a show of going to the prom as a group. Matt drove. We were one happy clique.

Summer arrived. I made plans to go to university out of town. I was desperate, for more than one reason, to get away.

The whole thing came to a head in the late summer of 1998. The girls invited me to a "group meeting." They called my boyfriend first. Again. Before calling me. They called to ask him to convince me to attend. The whole thing was planned our and staged like an intervention. Something about a united front. 

He refused, of course. And called me immediately. He was loyal, which might have been why I was so very taken with him. He urged me not to go, and in retrospect, I can't imagine why I didn't listen. I was angry at that point, I suppose. I didn't want them to think I was afraid. I didn't want to seem weak.

So I went. Matt came with me. We ended up at a city park. The girls requested that we sit on the grass in a circle and Lucy produced a "talking stone." ("Please don't speak," said Lucy, in a syrupy-sweet 'I'm so mature' sort of voice, "unless you are holding the stone.") And then they passed the stone around the circle and proceeded to tell me that they were kicking me out of the group, and why I was no longer welcome.

To be fair, not all my "friends" were in attendance. Devyani was out of town and missed the whole thing. Sonia, I believe, refused to attend, for which, I suppose, she deserves some credit. I noted at the time, and still remember however, that the telephone call to "warn" Matt about me had originated at her house, so clearly, she knew what was happening.

Lucy was there, of course (she being the meanest of the group and the one who seemed to hate me the most). I must have done something to deserve it, but I never knew what. Charoula was there as well, along with one other person they'd roped in for support. Charoula, to her credit, seemed embarrassed by the whole thing and didn't say much other than that she didn't really have a problem with me and didn't know why she was there. (She acted as though she'd just stumbled upon the meeting or been roped in against her will, despite having directly participated in planning the event. I guess her resolve failed her once we were face to face.) It was Lucy who did most of the talking. But as a group, nonetheless, they were quite the jury. Like something out of a movie, which is why I thought of Heathers.

In the end, I had my say. They finished their spiel, the "talking stone" passed to me (how utterly ridiculous) and I spent a good ten minutes spewing as much venom at them as I could manage on short notice. I didn't let any of them speak again. And at around 11 p.m., I stood up and walked away. And that was it.

I went off to University a week later. I made new friends. I never saw Lucy, Charoula or Sonia again.

Despite all that, believe it or not,  I tacked a picture of those girls up on my dorm room wall not two weeks later. A picture of us all together. Smiling. I guess I didn't want to seem like I had no friends back home. Or perhaps I didn't really understand that it was over. I let those  girls stare down at me for more than six months before I had the sense to take them down. Pathetic, really.

But none of that equals the most important part of the story. Here is the most important part of the story, the thing that matters most after all this time:

That night in the park, as I walked away, riding high on the fact that I'd had the last word, I tripped.

I was wearing a pair of high-heeled suede boots (with cut-off jean shorts, thankyouverymuch -- stylish!). And I had been sitting cross-legged in a park for over an hour. One of my legs was asleep. And so, when I stood to walk away, I stumbled, my sleeping leg twisting under me and making a sickening pop. I turned my ankle badly. It hurt like bloody hell.

I didn't look back, but I knew as I limped away that my exit had been ruined slightly.  Matt and I spent the rest of the evening soaking my swollen and blackening foot in ice water. It was really glamorous.

Why is the fact that I tripped the most important part of the story? Because years later, I ran into Devyani (the one who'd been out of town for my formal execution) and we rekindled a relationship for a brief time. And, somehow, the Heathering came up. She hadn't been there, but she'd been told about it. And what she said about it amazed me.

"I heard you fell down," she said, with a small giggle.

I heard you fell down.

That's the part of the story she heard. That's the part they remembered! That's the only part, I imagine, they found worth repeating.

Hearing it blew my mind.

I was in a play once. I didn't forget my lines.

 

I rarely think about high school, if I can help it. It was a long time ago. Onward and upward, right? What does it matter?

I don't think my "friends" were bad people. I think they were teenagers. I think they were prone to pack mentality, and without empathy. Maybe all children are like that. Maybe it's how they survive. (At least  one of the girls was over 18, but it's obvious we weren't truly mature.)  I'm sure (I hope) those girls grew up to be perfectly lovely women. Things change. I know I wouldn't like anyone to judge who I am now based on who I was in high school. Nonetheless, I find myself feeling less than perfectly forgiving about the whole thing. Some betrayals stay with you for a long time. They colour your life. This was certainly the case for me. I'm still hesitant and guarded in my friendships with women to some extent, and all this happend thirteen years ago.

When I woke from my fevered dream of being Heathered, I was sweating. Can you believe that? My nightshirt was soaked around the collar. In my dreams, I've been in car accidents, I've drowned, I've even been shot in the head, but I've never been happier to wake than I was this morning. I feel bouts of childhood nostalgia just like the next person, but today, I felt none of that.  

I've never been happier to be in bed beside my partner, with endless work days on the horizon, bills to pay, dishes to wash, laundry to do, and an appointment with my mechanic in the afternoon. I've never been happier to be grown up.

High school is, more often than not, just something we have to make it through.


I made it. And I'm grateful. 

UPATE: Alright princes and princesses. I deleted the last names and blurred the photos. Keep your pants on. 

Almost six years ago now, I wrote and published a story called "Spring Cleaning: you don't have to be friends with everyone." I pitched it as a "How To" piece. Specifically, "How to break up with a friend."  [Click the link and you'll get a PDF of the story. It's clean, I promise.]

Stupid, right? Who was (or am) I to give anyone advice (even semi-silly advice) on how to end a friendship? I only have two kinds of friends: the real kind and the fake kind. And of course, the fake kind are usually the ones to go. What can I say? I'm a conflict-avoider. That's how I end up with fake friends in the first place. So when we're done, it's usually a relief. I've gotten rid of two such friends in recent years, and it's been great. But when it feels like I have to lose someone from category one, it's a lot harder.

ANYWAY.

I know why I wrote the Spring Cleaning piece at the time. I wanted to seem cool. And funny. And I suppose I was feeling sardonic. That's what shines though. It's awful. Insipid and embarrassing.

But nonetheless, I found myself thinking about it yesterday as Nathan and I talked about how it's definitely time for me to give up on a couple of less-than-stellar friends.

Want advice on how to do it? I don't really have any. I have a friend who advocates just cutting yourself off. He says I worry too much. That I don't owe anyone anything. Not even an explanation. He says that, if interacting with someone leaves me feeling worse instead of better, I should just stop. Let it die. Don't reply to emails, don't return calls. Poof. It's gone.

But it's hard.

It helps if you're a little angry, of course. This weekend, as I struggled though a long distance phone call in which I tried and tried to connect with a person who I no longer trust and who didn't ask me a single, substantial question about my life, and who wouldn't (or couldn't) engage with my questions about hers, I started to feel a little of that, and it helped.  Then, when my ex came up, she mentioned something about how I needed to "get over it." That helped too. THEN, she commented on how difficult my breakup was. For her. Actually, for our whole friendship circle. My breakup, she said, was really traumatic... for them.

Suddenly, it didn't feel so hard.

The funny thing is, this person has been trying to tell me for years that she's a "bad friend." She mentions it every time I talk to her, and in almost every email. So why didn't I listen before? Why did it take me years to get it?

I suppose because we don't grow up thinking of female friendships as dispensable. Romantic relationship, sure. Men? Marriage? Of course. But platonic relationships, especially between women, are supposed to be forever.

I think we've talked about this before.

I guess the bottom line is that what I said in my post about Craig a few weeks back is true: if you don't feel happy when your friend is happy, you know you're not really friends. And if you're not really friends, maybe you never were. And if you never were, what does it matter how it ends? What was it worth in the first place?

* Image by Lucasbite from Stock Xchng.

Well, it's October. It's October and the leaves are falling, and everything is crisp and chilly and beautiful. This is my favourite time of year.

I'm feeling nostalgic today. Probably because I spent this past weekend attending the wedding of an old friend. Craig Swann. I've mentioned him before. Our friendship, like all friendships, has had its ups and downs. We've been closer at some times than at others. But over the past twelve years I can say that he's been unfailingly loyal and he is one of the few people in the world I've always felt safe with. I've never had to tell him a lie. And he's seen my ugly cry. That's saying a lot.

Here we are back in 1999:

As his wedding approached, people asked me if I was sad to see it happen. Sad? SAD? I couldn't understand it. Why would I be sad? His bride, Leah, has been great for him, and while it's cliched to say so, he's never been happier. The people who asked were mostly of the sort who couldn't understand how two straight people could have a completely platonic friendship. (And if you're that kind of person, I think the bottom line is that you're never going to get it.) But for the record, no. No, I wasn't sad to see it happen. I was happy to see it happen.

This is an important thing about friendship that I'm not sure a lot of people truly understand. When you love someone, you're happy to see them happy. That's how it works. When you think you love someone, but you aren't happy to see them happy, well... then you know there's something wrong. Seriously, people. Take this to heart. It might help you with some of your more difficult relationships.

(Still don't get it? Feel free to read my long post about pseudo boyfriends and what they are. It's kind of funny and ranty. Maybe that will help.)

Anyway.

Feeling nostalgic isn't the same as feeling sad. And what I'm feeling nostalgic about isn't about a frienship, but a time. It's about the past twelve years. Where did they go? When I met Craig, I was 18. He was 19. We were babies. (Maybe we still are?) We were so silly and so light. We had so much fun. We still have fun, but it's a different kind of fun. That's growing up for you. That should be Growing Up's official subtitle.

Adulthood: it's a different kind of fun.

My point? I don't have one. This is a personal blog. It's rambly.  I will leave you with a slide show of some photos circa "the old days." Friends come and gone. Loves had and lost. Who doesn't have a set of photos like these? See 'em and weep.