I’ve come a long way in two + years.  Why… days go by that I don’t think of the people who used to be my “friends” and how I was essentially shut out of a friendship that I once cherished.  But I still do think of it, from time to time.  And I get very upset when I do.  Why, do you ask?  Why, when I was treated so carelessly?  Because I cared; very much.

Now, there is the off-chance that one or more of the parties involved may read this blog and read what I have to say here.  I would be tempted to say it’s unlikely, because that would denote some level of caring on their part.  But it could happen, mostly because they might care what I have to say about THEM.  It would give them an opportunity to feel righteously indignant, that’s for sure.  And I’m sure they would care about that.  But about ME?  Nope.  In fact, the more time that passes, the more I am convinced that they didn’t really ever care for me as a friend.  I’m hesistant to say that they even cared about me as a person, judging by how easily they cast me aside.

Now, before we go any further, I don’t want it to sound as though I was completely innocent and blameless in how our “friendship” went down.  I did some stupid, thoughtless things.  And regardless of the fact that I didn’t view what I did as mean-spirited as they thought I did, the important thing is that they did view it as mean-spirited.  And I felt awful for hurting feelings that way, when that was obviously not at all my intention.  I would never want to knowingly hurt my friends, because they are friends.   And if you do hurt them, you better damn well apologize.

And I did.  At least once, if not many, many more times.  I apologized in person, on the phone and via email and by way of text message.  The last thing I wanted was for anyone to be angry with me.  I was fully willing to own up to what I had done.

(For those of you who are new here, what I did was this:  1) I had ditched out on a day of Vacation Bible School, where I was supposed to help watch babies in the nursery.  If you know me personally, you know that watching other people’s children is NOT a strength of mine.  I was signed up for this, without being given much choice, by one of my “friends”.  What I should have done right there is tell her I could not do it.  But I am a people pleaser and didn’t want to cause a stir.  I felt I could deal with it.  I couldn’t.   2) I had come to a birthday party for one of my friend’s children, feeling kinda in a bad mood and sporting a mean headache.  I didn’t feel very up to socializing and kept to myself most of the evening because I didn’t want to dampen things for anyone else.  When asked if I wanted a turn at playing Wii Sports, I declined as politely as I could.  I really felt I would rather watch than participate.  I finally had my husband take me home where I knew I would be happier.  3) The next day, at another birthday party, we left after cake had been served and presents had been opened.  We had been there for several hours already and as a few other people were leaving, we felt it was time.  No one asked us to stay when we said our goodbyes.  3)  The next day after #2, on the walk to school, my son was called a “butthead” by one of my “friends” sons.  This upset him greatly because he’s a very sensitive child.  I was upset that he was upset.  When he asked that I pick him up from school and drive him the next morning instead of doing the walk, I agreed to it.  I told my “friend” that we would be doing this and she didn’t seem to care either way.  I basically got no reaction.   Still feeling out of sorts, as I detected a cold shoulder from my friend and feeling generally moody, I wrote a blog post about this encounter to get it off my chest, which wasn’t entirely about the incident as much it was about remembering unpopularity from my own childhood.  Afterward, I felt much better and ready to put the whole thing behind me.)

Still with me?  It’s a tangled web.

After #1, I apologized profusely when it became apparent to me that my ditching out had caused some anger.  I was basically shunned at a VBS event that evening.  But women are masters of passive aggressiveness and my “friend” assured me that she wasn’t angry at me.  That she just didn’t see me there or she would have said hello.  SURE.   But I let it go.  She said we were cool so I figured we were cool.  I do tend to be a little naive.  After #2, I felt better after getting home and settling down.  I didn’t know why I felt so out of sorts.  It was though my emotions were bubbling beneath the surface and I couldn’t filter them.  My “friend” called to see if I was okay.  I told her I had a little headache, that I felt a little out of sorts and that I was already feeling better.  It wasn’t anything personal, I assured her.   Little did I know, her husband felt I had been extremely rude when turning down playing Wii Sports with everyone else.  I wish I had known, because I would have insisted that I meant nothing by it.  I just simply wasn’t in the mood to play it and preferred to watch.   The next day, at the second party, I received a cold shoulder from the friend whose party I had attended the day before.  But we made the best of it and had a good time, I thought.  Harry, we hardly saw during the whole party as he was off with the kids playing video games and the like.  As we left, he told us some of the kids had left him out and hurt his feeling a little.  But he was (and is!) a sensitive child and what would be no big deal to some, is always a big deal to him.  I generally filter these things through that knowledge, but it still is never nice to see your child upset.  That said, he did say he had a good time and that is what matters most, yes? The next day, with the “butthead” incident, I had received another cold shoulder from my “friend” and when, mid-walk, when Harry got very upset over the name calling and I hung back to see what had happened, she neither waited for us to catch up or asked me what had happened.  I took this to mean she didn’t care about it, which sort of upset me a little.  I would have expected at least a “what happened?” when we finally caught up.  Harry had asked me to drive him to and from school so I told her that I wouldn’t be walking down the next couple of days.  There was no expression on her face as she accepted this information.  Again, I took it to mean she didn’t care.  She didn’t ask at that point why or what had happened again.  So I thought maybe the distance would help her cool off a little.  And myself too, as I was progressively getting more and more upset by the whole thing.  I couldn’t fathom why she wouldn’t care.  I was her friend, right?  Wouldn’t there at least be SOME concern?  Or interest?

I stewed about this the rest of the morning until I wrote the blog post in question.  Now, I shouldn’t have done that.  I needed somewhere to vent and I wrongfully thought that my blog was neutral territory.  I was vague enough, I thought, if it did get read.  But I was pretty sure it wouldn’t.  And I never in a million years thought it would hurt any feelings.  That was my bad.  Lesson to be learned: never blog about friendships.  EVER.  I woke up from a nap that afternoon, feeling infinitely better, to see a comment by “Other Friend” (the hostess of the second birthday party, for those of you who are keeping track).  And I was STUNNED.  Honestly, I couldn’t fathom it for a few minutes. I had to read and re-read and re-re-read it to make sure I was seeing what was truly there.  I never imagined I would get a response like that from one of them.  I realized that the blog post, besides being a poor idea in the first place, was entirely and 100% misjudged.  I felt awful.  I emailed her back to apologize profusely and try to explain myself.  A few other comments were left by dear, dear readers.  And I saw that, though they were “sticking up” for me, they too misread the post and assumed I was calling these children bullies.  Oh dear.  What a pickle.  My husband tried to diffuse the situation with a comment and I both commenters emailed me privately to apologize for fanning the flames and again offer their support.  I had several more positive emails from people.  But then I received a comment from the husband of my “friend” (the one who threw the FIRST party and shunned me the next two days).  And… wow.   If the first comment stunned me, this one was a sucker punch.  I was meant to feel shamed by it and shamed I did feel.  Is this how they were seeing me?  It was like hearing about yourself in the third person.

Again, I will say: I had my fault in this.  I was feeling VERY moody.  But I thought, perhaps incorrectly, that I was shielding people around me from the brunt of my raging emotions.  I guess I wasn’t.  My intention, of course, was never to hurt.  And I was torn up at the thought of hurting my friends, especially because it was inadvertently.  And because I knew that my behavior had not been what it should have been.  I sent many emails to all the parties involved.  I received an email from my friend’s husband and again, he made it apparent that I was attacking them, that they were devastated and hurt and that I was in the wrong.

I tried so hard to explain myself.  But I think my explanations fell on deaf ears.  We found out a day or so later that I was unexpectedly pregnant.  And my swinging moods were finally explained.  That alone made me feel so much better.  It always feels good to have an explanation for something you have been in the dark about.  And just KNOWING helped me be able to manage it better.  At least I knew it wasn’t some of weird psychological thing.  This was explained to our “friends”, in the hopes that they would be happy for us and be willing to let it all go.

That didn’t happen.  We were issued cold “congratulations” and once again told that I was deliberately hurtful.  This persisted for a few days before I finally arranged to meet Kelly after the school drop off and work out our issues.  I apologized.  I tried again to explain myself.  I apologized some more.  I explained my desire to preserve the friendship.

And it has never been the same since.  We have done a few things socially with both “friends” and their families but it was never like it once was.  I never felt the support from any of them that I would have expected to find.  It was as though the events over those three days (I include the VBS thing because I believe a lot of hurt feelings were carried over from that, even though I had been assured they hadn’t), had completely dissolved the friendship.  My mind didn’t want to accept this for a very long time.  You just don’t do that to friends!  Friends give each other a chance!  They accept apologies and move on because the friendship is so much more important than the grudge.

That is why after a few years, I had to realize that the reason they so easily cast me aside is that I never truly was their friend.  They never did really care for me or my family.  If you care for someone, you give them a second chance.  Third chance.  FOURTH and FIFTH chances.  They’re your friends.  This is why I kept giving them chances.  Even after we were left out for a Halloween party, even after my “friend” backed out of my baby shower, even after plans were continually canceled on us.  After we were left out or otherwise meant to feel uncomfortable.  I wanted to try to remain friendly with them because we had been (I thought) great friends.  I had had a great time with these people, once upon a time.  I truly cared for them and their families.  Spending time together had always brightened my day.  I wanted to keep that, grow it, and hold onto it.  And I had such a hard time convincing myself it was a sham the whole time.

I am sure, that if one of them were to read this post, they would recoil with indignation and disbelief and this same “confusion” that was peddled in all those emails to me back in August of 2007.  I am sure their only concern would be about how poorly I am trying to make THEM look (as if anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis really knows who they are) (or cares).  They wouldn’t care anything about the fact that myself and my family were hurt just as much by what went down as they were.  Even moreso, I dare say, since I don’t believe they ever really cared about us in the first place.  They only cared about image.  Image is everything.  It took me 2 years to be able to admit that to myself.

I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be fine with the whole thing.  It still smarts to think of it, so I try not to.  And as I mentioned before, many days go by where I am able to put it out of my mind.  But every time I reel back from a social interaction, I know it is because of all this.   I know I need to rise above it.  There is nothing any of them can do to “fix” me, I can only fix myself.

It’s just a shame that they broke me in the first place.

This morning, while cooing over Evie’s adorable-ness, I had a flash to those mothers who, for whatever reason, are jealous of their daughter’s good looks.  Generally, these are women who have a truckload of self-worth issues and whatnot (and let’s be honest, who doesn’t?) and seem to take them out on their daughters.  Which to me, seems monstrously unfair and also cruel.  I want Evie to be prettier than I am!  And while I think that, I know in my heart that it won’t be hard.  Simply because I’m not pretty.  At 19 months old, she’s already prettier than I am.  But you know what?  GOOD.  It’s like redemption, in a way.

Of course, she IS my daughter and I am a tad biased.  I’m sure no matter what I would always think she’s pretty.  She always will be, in my eyes.  And I said to Kile, “God help the first guy who tells her she isn’t pretty.”  To which he replied, “Most guys wouldn’t say that.”

And that’s when the emotion flooded to the surface.  The memories, doubts and angst were all the sudden just as fresh as they were years before. I said in return, “You’d be surprised.”

When I was just a young thing, I had a crush on a boy.  It was the sort of crush that went on for years.  Years and years.  It wasn’t pretty.  And when I eventually got the nerve up to have my friends talk to him (SNORT!), of course it did not work out the way I would have wanted.  There was hemming and hawing and something about how I “wasn’t his type” and blah blah blah.   These were all niceties and the bottom line was, I wasn’t pretty enough.  Or,  you know, pretty at all.  So that was that.

Eighth grade pretty much sucked.

Years later, my first real, serious boyfriend… Shortly after we “met” (it was an online thing because I’m not so good with meeting people out in the big scary real world, even now), we exchanged pictures and… yeah.  I’m not going to go into dramatic detail but basically, my picture didn’t quite measure up.  And he wasn’t sure.  He had to have some time to think about it.  You know, all the while I’m shrinking until I’m about the size of an ant.  Under a microscope, found lacking.  Could a fairly ugly girl ever find happiness? I was starting to wonder.

A day or so later, he decided that he was fine with it and the relationship progressed… at least until I dumped him months later because he was kind of a high maintenance sort of guy.  Well that and many, many other reasons.  But yeah, a story for another time.

It was a common thread.  Guys were never interested in me because I just didn’t fit into the classical definition of “pretty”.  Some were tactful and tried to find ways to not have to come out and say it, and others did come out and say it.  Either way, I always knew where I stood.

Kile rolls his eyes at me whenever I make mention of not being pretty, but it’s pretty matter of fact.  Sure, there’s beauty on the inside, etc and so forth, blah blah blah.  Was I going to win any beauty contests?  Nope.  For the most part, I’m pretty okay with it.  Of course I’d like to be physically attractive.  To have fine features, a petite build, a quick metabolism… who doesn’t want that?  But there’s no changing biology and I look the way I look.  End of story.

Still, a deep part of me hopes and prays and dreams and wishes that Evie will never EVER have to suffer knowing that she isn’t pretty to me.  She’ll always be beautiful to me, of course, but I do feel guilt at hoping that the rest of the world will be able to see it too.

It has been eight years since two planes flew into to the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the world as we knew it changed forever.  That morning is burned in my memory, the feelings and sights and horror are still so fresh that it feels almost like just yesterday that I stood in my living room (a different living room, in fact), staring at the television, not wanting to believe my eyes.

Our lives have changed drastically since September 11, 2001.  The way we think has changed.  Travel has changed.  Politics have changed.  People have changed.  Not all of this change has been for the better.  And not all of this change regrettable.  Some of this change just simply had to happen.

I hate that that day had to happen.  I hate a lot of what has happened to this beautiful country as a result.

I wonder how all the family who lost loved ones that day are doing now.   Does it feel like just yesterday to them too?  I bet it does.

It’s hard to know what to say here.  What IS there to say here?  I remember.  I will never forget.

Whenever you hear about stay at home moms say how hard their job is, I think it automatically conjurs up this image of slaving away over some difficult physical task, or wracking your brown over an intellectually difficult issue.  But that’s not what makes being a stay at home mom hard.

It’s not physical or mental (or at least not all of it because it is that too).  It’s psychological.

Psychologically, staying at home with small children is hard.  Very, very hard.  Even if the children are extremely well behaved (which, lets face it, mine aren’t), the drain on your psyche would still be there.   And though your nerves are taxed to their very limits, you still have diapers to change, lunches to fix, sippy cups to fill, boo-boos to kiss better, baby’s to nurse and everything else that goes along with it.  It’s a long list.  You have to hear the same old songs and watch the same old preschool programming on television because as mind-numbing and god-awful as it is, it soothes the savage beasts and sometimes you need them to be soothed.  You have to say for the 7,643,495th time, “Liam!  Don’t hit your sister!”  You have to enforce the rules.  You have to give cuddles when they need them (and they always need them when your hands are full with something else).   You have to paw through the pantry in search of lunch food, wondering where all the graham crackers went anyhow.  You have to play the psychological games to make your overbearing toddler still think he’s getting his way when in reality, he’s getting YOUR way.  You have to figure out why the baby is unsatisfied and clingy and needy and then listen to her when you have to set her down to go change her brother’s diaper.

At the end of the day, you breathe a sigh of relief for a few moments to yourself.  And then you wake up in the morning and it all starts over again.  Each and every day.  The same.  No weekends.  No vacations.  No coffee break.  There is no escape.  Just more of the same, day after day after day.

And before long you find yourself wondering, “Is this all there is?”  And “Who am I?  Do I even know me anymore?”  And sometimes even, “What is the point?”

Of course, all it takes are those little moments where you your toddler crawls up on your lap and gives you a kiss, completely unprovoked or the baby flashes her dimple at you when you get her out of her crib after her nap and those little moments really do help you hold onto your sanity.  Because if it weren’t for those moments, you would have run screaming into traffic ages ago.

Then you see those moms who have it all together.  Who gush and say that they just love staying home and taking care of their children is a joy and a blessing.  Oh sure, it’s hard at times but they wouldn’t have it any other way and gosh, isn’t the sky blue today?  Then they bake another tray of cookies and moms like myself are thankful there aren’t any guns in the house because that would be the PERFECT time to put one to their temple and pull the trigger.   Are these “super moms” a myth?  I mean, we’ve all heard woman SAY this stuff, but do they really mean it?  I’d like to think that they don’t but maybe some of them do?   And if they do, then what the heck is the matter with ME?

And there the cycle of worthlessness continues.  But you don’t have time to wallow because someone just woke up in the night and you have to find a way to get her back to sleep without nursing her because you’re trying to wean her at night.

It’s hard.  Every day.  It’s hard.

So our illustrious “governor” gave a State of the State speech last night.  And the state?  Is not real good.  Nevada is in trouble right now.  The budget is a nightmare.  And the governor suggested last night that perhaps one way out of the mess is to give higher education a 35% cut.  And with the University here in Reno being the largest state school in Nevada, I guess we can see which school would take the biggest hit.

Let’s just ignore for a minute the common knowledge that in a bad economy, people go back to school.  With that being the case, is it REALLY smart to cut 35% of the budget for said school?  To force a school to raise tuition costs to compensate?  Lay off employees when they could otherwise be used and needed?  Cut pay for people who desperately need that pay in this world of rising costs? Raise the cost of health insurance premiums that are already astronomical?

In a word: UGH.

Budget cuts suck, plain and simple.  And I know it’s never easy to cut anywhere.  But 35%?  OUCH.

So maybe we need to think about getting out?  It’s always been something we’ve talked about.  We’ve never really wanted to stay in Nevada forever.  But it’s also something we’ve never really taken seriously.  Now though?  Maybe it’s time to take it seriously.  Maybe we need to start looking somewhere else.  I’m sure no state is doing all that great in this recession, but surely there are other states that are handling it a tad better than Nevada is.  Surely there are states that aren’t cutting higher education so drastically.

The idea is to start with the bordering states and move out from there, in terms of searching.  Ignoring Arizona because it’s hot and I don’t do hot and ignoring California too because… yeah.  Right.  So Oregon, Idaho and Utah.  Then Washington, Montana and parts east.

Who knows.  Maybe we’ll stay in Nevada until we’re old and gray.  And maybe we’ll leave here within the year.  Who knows?  But I will say that the budget crisis here is making me awful nervous.   We RELY on Kile’s income and if it were gone?  We’d be SCREWED.  Quite simply, we need stablility more than we need to live in Reno right now.