Tag: friendships

missing my friend on her fiftieth birthday

I should be out to lunch, raising a glass, giving a toast, and celebrating one of my dearest friends’ fiftieth birthdays today, but she is no longer here. She passed away one year and nine months ago, leaving behind a husband and two darling teenaged daughters.

I miss Anna so much at times that my heart hurts. I’ve lost parents (both of them) and parents-in-law (both of them too), but nothing has wrenched my heart as much as losing my dear, dear friend. Not only do I lament the days I personally didn’t get to spend with her (and her fiftieth birthday would have been a big one, at that), I am saddened for the stuff she is missing, like seeing her daughters ace the SATs or watching them drive off for the first time on their own, brand-new driver’s licenses in their wallets. She’ll never get to see them collect their diplomas or their degrees, or walk them down the aisle for the last time as single ladies. She’ll never meet her grandchildren, call them by name, or see what color their eyes are or who they favor in appearance, their beautiful daughter or the putz she married. She’ll never get to spend her husband’s retirement traveling or doing the things one just can’t do when there’s a full-time worker in the household and he has a schedule to keep to. She’ll never get to age gracefully or die naturally.

I, of course, am especially sad for the girls. They’ll never get to do spa days with their mom or listen to lectures about boys and fast cars and what to not do on grad night. From October 2014 on they’ve been without the one woman they should have been able to rely on for advice, support, and love for the rest of their lives.

And I’m sad for her husband, my friend, who wakes up to an empty bed in the morning and sees the same image when laying down his head every night. He turns fifty tomorrow too, but since that fateful day in 2014, there has not been any celebrating on these two days in June that used to be so joyous.

I know if there is a heaven and if God lets in those good folks who are not card-carrying members, which I hope is the case, Anna’s up there watching her family and friends carrying on. She’s whipping up her magnificent eggrolls for the lord above and planning the day when we can all again sit around the table as she blows out candles.

I miss you and I love you, Anna.

 

having a friendship with a self-involved person takes patience

collage photo of woman
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I have a single friend, no kids, whom I’ve known for more than 30 years. She’s funny, kind, and we think a lot alike. When we get together, we have plenty of laughs. She has known me and my husband since before we were married and before we had our four kids. She takes a general interest in everyone’s welfare. So why then when we talk or text or see one another does the conversation go 80 percent in her favor and 20 percent in mine?

I’ve been wondering if my friend glosses over the news I have to share in favor of talking about her life because she’s single and she’s all she’s got. I started googling “self-centeredness in singlehood” and there’s some scientific info to back it up but even more articles debunking it, mostly in editorials, often written by singles themselves. These editorials state how people can be self-absorbed and narcissistic whether they are single or not. How true, and far be it from me to put all singles into a box and label it “self-involved,” but why does it seem that my single friends and relatives care more about themselves and what they have going on in their lives than what the rest of us are going through?

As I stated, my friend has a genuine concern for me, my husband, and our four children, but she rarely deeply questions how they’re doing or offers to lend support if I need it–and I’ve needed it quite a bit over the past few years. And when I bring up something going on with one or more of us (and there is a lot going on in a family of six), she gives short shrift to what I have to say. She just about never takes me up when I invite her to family functions or other events involving my family. Or she sounds enthusiastic in the moment, when I first bring it up, but when the day of the event arrives, she finds an excuse to not come by. I understand feeling out of place when being around a throng of people who share the same last name, but to events when there are other friends invited, single and married, she won’t show up to those either.

She is close to getting a new job and asked if we could get together spur of the moment today so she could have the big reveal on the name of the prospective company (she won’t tell me in a text) and fill me in on all the details. I was tempted to meet up with her for a walk, which I need to do daily anyway, and not hang out at a coffee shop she suggested, where she can sit across from me and talk a mile a minute while I nod in agreement and try to interject conversation just to get cut off. But then I thought, why bother? I know it will be a one-sided conversation and I would have to put my own work aside at a time when I have to make some money to put food on the table, you know, the one with the six chairs around it?

She texted me about the new job earlier this week. During the texting conversation, I mentioned my youngest having to take the driving test tomorrow and my having just booked reservations for a summer vacation (we take trips just one week a year) and where we were going and why I had to work to make a little extra dough to help pay for everything, and then I asked for a few more details on the job sitch. And you can guess what issues in that text she only replied to. Yes, just the parts relating to herself.

My son graduated from college a couple weeks ago. Even though it’s kid/graduate number three for us, it’s still a pretty big deal. So the day before, when my son decided where he wanted to celebrate post commencement, I invited my friend, who loves impromptu plans, by the way, because her schedule is much more open than mine. Attending the restaurant lunch would be just the six of us and two of my brothers, one sister-in-law, and my sister, all of whom she knows. What did she reply? No, she said, she didn’t want to waste gas driving the 30 miles round-trip to the restaurant and back home–even though the meal would have been comped by us and I wouldn’t have expected a gift. (She hasn’t bought my kids anything since the oldest was born, and she’s now 30!)

I said I understood, that I’d be paranoid about spending even gas money too if I were between jobs. But that was before I heard of her plans for the long weekend: she’s driving four hours each way to hang out with friends at a nice hotel she’ll have to pay for, along with the food and drink, of course, she’ll consume while there.

There are more examples of her not making the effort on our part, and I give her a lot of leeway and probably shouldn’t have all these years. So part of this may be my own fault. But after having lost a dear friend to cancer a year and a half ago and finding out that another wonderful, helpful friend is moving away, I value the friendships I still have, good or bad. For some reason I just do. She and I both consider each other family members. But if that were the case on her part, why wouldn’t she come around to my family events? (She has no relatives in town.) Why would she constantly make excuses and then turn around and look like a hypocrite? I can extend my family to an infinite number of people. With her, I guess I’m it and I only am considered family on her own terms.

If I were single too, though, I suppose I’d call the shots as well, but I’d like to think, single or not, I’d still be less self-absorbed.

Leave a reply if you can relate.

 

 

 

 

 

work-at-home depression–yes, it is a thing

Some people–a lot of people, actually–would think that the perfect job is one in which you get to stay home and still earn money. That sounds good to me too, but working at home is not all it’s cracked up to be. And here’s why.

Working from home can be awesome, especially if you have young children or a difficult time commuting. It’s also great if your schedule is ever changing, like if you’re a student and have a hard time fitting a work schedule around classes. There are work-at-home situations that offer the same benefits (monetarily and otherwise) of working outside the home, like when you have a steady job with one employer who lets you work from home instead of at the office. But for those of us who freelance and whose work is sporadic and piecemeal, working at home can be a drag. For one, it can bring on depression. And here’s why:

1) Who’s the boss? Most people would think not having a traditional boss would be a good thing, right? But when you freelance for a number of different companies, you are at the mercy of their very different rules and requirements, and although you run your own company per se, the clients are the ones who direct your work. Many times too, projects can overlap and deadlines can conflict, meaning you have to take on two or more jobs at once, working crazy-long hours to get everything done, and oftentimes the work suffers. If that happens, you run the chance of not getting called on for more work.

2) Whose line is it anyway? Because of the risk of being contacted by an employer at any time via e-mail or by phone, most workers would say there’s a fine line between work and home these days. But with freelancing, there’s no line at all. At the end of the day, people who work in a physical space, be it an office, a factory, or a library, are able to walk away from work, get in their cars or hop on the bus or train, and go home. They may take their work with them via a laptop or running through work scenarios in their heads, but there’s a clear line of demarcation between work and home. Freelancers don’t have that luxury. They literally live with their work. They can work at 2 p.m. or 2 a.m. They work weekends, weekdays, and holidays even. They work when the work is there or, as stated at the end of point number one above, they may not be working at all.

3) Show me the money! Unless you’re JK Rowling or someone equally fortunate and talented to have made it big while doing something without a regular paycheck, the money from freelancing or contract work is not as lucrative as working for an employer. Polls have shown that freelancers doing the same type of work and who have the same education as those in full-time jobs are paid woefully less for the same output. A small percentage can make more, but I guarantee you they are working many more hours than the guy in the office. And yes, you can pay for your own health care and it is a tax deduction, but take it from someone who has had health care plans through an employer and plans not through an employer, without a workplace plan the premiums are higher, the benefits are lower, and you still have to earn enough to pay for those premiums. It’s not a win-win situation at all.

4) I’m so lonesome, I could cry. Sitting in a room for hours on end and staring at a screen, a canvas, or whatever work tool you use can be isolating, to say the least. Whether you like ’em or not, people need other people. We’re social animals. So’s my dog, of course, but I can only have a one-sided conversation with him. We crave human interaction, even those superficial conversations while standing by the watercooler chatting about last night’s episode of 60 Minutes.  (Do offices even have watercoolers anymore or have those been replaced by water bottles? Well, at least 60 Minutes is still around.)

5) Risky business. Even well-established companies shut down entire plants and office complexes at times (now more often than ever), so there’s not a soul who isn’t at risk of losing his or her job at any time these days. Long gone are the companies that hire workers straight out of school or the service, employ them for their entire working lives, and send them off into retirement with a nice, fat pension.Though they’re few and far between, there still are some employers like that. Freelancers, however, can’t count on steady work, let alone steady paychecks, ever. And there’s no pension, not even a 401(k), to fall back on one day. Sure, you can squirrel away a few thousand a year into an IRA, but there are limits to how much you can contribute and it’s all after-tax, not pretax money.

6) Happiness is a warm gun. The hot-and-cold of freelancing is extremely difficult to handle especially if you’re a lukewarm person. I like things I can count on. I’ve been married for 30 years and have had some of the same friends for decades. I hold on to my cars (the one I drive turned 14 last month), and I eat the same breakfast daily. I’m a very consistent person, so having a job without a consistent workflow is really difficult to bear. I am trying to supplement my freelance career with a “regular” job outside the home just so I have something to count on on a weekly basis, but finding even part-time work outside the home is difficult if you don’t have a steady employer to vouch for you. References are really hard to come by, too. Yes, you can use as a reference the client for whom you did a bang-up job on a recent project, but how are you going to look to that client if you mention seeking outside work? He or she may think you’re no longer interested in the occasional project and not call on you again, whether you got the regular job or not. He or she may think your time will be limited now, little does he know that you were juggling gigs while doing work for him too.

There are ways to get around the feelings of isolation (take your work to Starbucks, take a walk, go to the park, meet up with friends, join a group with other freelancers) and there are times the money is good for the work done, but there’s no getting around the roller-coaster ride of workflow that freelancers have, which in turn can affect one’s mood.

I try to look at the positives of working from home (being “there” for my kids, being in a comfortable place, not having to fight traffic in a big city–that one’s huge in my mind, and not having to dress up or even shower–OK, that one can be a big negative, actually). And I do realize that there’s good and bad with both scenarios and, truth be told, I’d rather work at home. But there’s no getting around the fact that there are negatives. Now if only I had a coworker to discuss them with.

don’t take anything good for granted

Tonight is Halloween, but instead of spending it with my youngest child, who is out trick-or-treating, I’m home. This is the first time in about 25 years that I haven’t taken a child trick-or-treating. My youngest is now 13 and going around with a friend and his dad, plus his friend’s sister and two of her friends. I didn’t feel like being the fifth wheel (and kind of felt uninvited anyway), so I’m home.

My husband is across the cul-de-sac, hanging out with our neighbors. That’s been the neighborhood gathering every Halloween night. But I don’t feel very social this year. I found out today that one of my dearest friends has colon cancer. She had emergency surgery today. Her husband just called to let me know the surgery went well, but that 10 inches of my friend’s colon was removed. Her life will be irrevocably altered from here on out, which is so devastating for a woman in only her forties with two middle-school-aged girls. Like many women but to an extreme degree, this is a woman who puts others ahead of herself. When I tell people of her generosity, they are amazed that someone like her exists. But she does and the day I don’t have her in my life will be a tragedy, not because of the things she’s given me that I’ll miss, but because with her will go one of the biggest hearts and kindest souls I’ve ever experienced. No, make that the biggest heart and kindest soul. I love her dearly.

Hurricane Sandy blew through the Northeast yesterday and with her came massive amounts of destruction along with a reminder that there are things in this world–hurricanes, and in the case of my friend, illnesses–that are out of our control. We cannot decide our own fate fully; never have been and never will be. We have to take the cards we’re dealt and be happy that we are even in the game.

 

forever friends

An old friend of mine recently came back into my life. After maybe ten or more years, she decided to reconnect. During that time and up until a couple years ago, I’d been sending e-mails and the annual Christmas card with the family newsletter inside letting her know what we’d been up to for the year, always with an added postscript of hoping to reconnect soon. After several years of not receiving even a Christmas card in reply, I stopped sending them, thinking she didn’t want to know me anymore. I didn’t know why, but figured she’d get in touch when she did.

At the time she stopped seeing me regularly, she had just lost her mother and was having a tough go of it. She sought out religion in the hopes of getting comfort. And she kept her distance from not only me, but a few other friends as well. Before she broke away, she had given me a small angel knickknack inscribed with “I’m thinking of you.” She told me at the time that even if she lost touch, that I should always remember I was in her thoughts and prayers.

Ten or so years later and about seven months ago, I got a call from my friend, whom I’ll call Ann. Ann said she missed me and my family (she, my husband, my brother, and I had all worked together at one time, long, long ago) and wanted to see me. I dropped everything and she and I met for coffee. It was so good seeing her. It felt like old times, as though we had never lost touch.

I’m not sure exactly why she dropped out of our lives, other than to figure out some stuff she was going through after the death of her mom, but I didn’t pry. I didn’t care. I was just happy to have her back.

Our lives are so dissimilar now–she’s single and has never been married; she has no kids and no pets, either, while I, on the other hand, have been married for over 27 years, have four kids and a dog and a cat. Our lives rotate on different axes, but overlap just enough–kind of like a lunar eclipse–for there still to be more than a passing friendship. I don’t know why certain people are in our lives or why they drift away or return, but I think there is a reason for everything. Maybe one day Ann will fill me in on all the details, but I really don’t care either way. Truth be told, there wasn’t a lot we would have done together all those years while I raised four kids and she maintained her single, uncomplicated lifestyle and her distance, but it doesn’t matter. What matters now is that she picked up the phone that warm June day and rang me up.  By the way, I had kept that little angel in a prominent place all those years and occasionally glanced over at it and thought of Ann. What she said was true: She was always thinking of me. And so was I.