The Ultimatum

The duffel bag spilled clothes onto the floor – still unpacked from the road-trip I had just returned from. 

Books stacked in piles, and there boxes waiting to be filled.  While I had been away my family had already packed most of their own belongings, but my room remained untouched, awaiting my return.  The move was only a week or two away, and there was still so much left to do.

I pushed away the bed, reaching underneath for all the items that were lost under there, shoved into the darkness.

I sifted through papers and photos – of items to keep and throw.  Dozens of photos looked up at me – most of them of me and Georgie.  I lost myself in the sifting. 

The distinctive melody I’d assigned for when Georgie called me blared suddenly, causing me to drop a photo I’d been looking at.  We had just returned from our road-trip yesterday, and I did not expect to hear from her today.  She had been frustrated with me the whole ride home – after I had made the executive decision to cut the trip short by one day.  One measly day – and she was angry. 

I had a whole room to pack.  I didn’t have time for chatting.  But she was supposed to be my best friend.  I shouldn’t ignore her call.

I picked up.  Absent-mindedly I chatted, my attention still mostly focused on packing.  I began to tell her I was busy, that I would call her later, when she asked me about AMP.

I stopped what I was doing, and composed my voice before answering, “Why do you ask Georgie?”

”Well are you dating him or not?  Do you like him?”

She was supposed to be my best friend… but recent lessons had taught me to be a little wary.

She was supposed to be my best friend…but I was keeping a secret from her.

I calmly replied, “I don’t see why we are having this conversation.  Do you like him?”

”No, of course not,” she sputtered indignantly. 

I was losing patience with her obsessive need to control my life.  I took in a deep breath, aiming for a calm but firm tone. 

”Then I fail to see the purpose of this, I’m really busy Georgie.  We just got back from spending every moment together for over two weeks, and now you suddenly call and ask me about him?”

”I need to know,” she replied.  “I can’t be friends with you if you are dating him.”

I could feel the anger bubbling up inside me, the frustration.  She was so stubborn, so opinionated – and this was none of her business.  Why should she care?  Part of me ached to hang up, but the curiosity of what ridiculous reasoning she would spout off stopped me.

“Excuse me?  You can’t be friends with me if I date him?  Why the hell not?”

“Because, D.  You just broke up with Bob because you weren’t ready for a relationship.”

”Bob and I broke up almost a year ago.  Who I want to date is my business Georgie.”  My voice was rising.  The frustration built up inside me.  Who did she think she was?  I continued, “I’m an adult – I am capable of making my own decisions.  So, unless you know something about AMP that I don’t, like he’s secretly married, or a murderer or something, I don’t know how my dating him would affect our friendship.”  

“It just will.  I won’t be your friend anymore if you are – that’s my decision and it’s final.”

Those last words pushed me over the edge.  “Well, I don’t want to be friends with someone who gives me ultimatums.” 

And with that phone call, our friendship ended.

This post is written for The Red Dress Club prompt: “ Write about a fight.  Who won?  Why?  What happened? Use emotion.”
As always, constructive criticism is welcome.

Missing the friend you were

Remember when Bob and I were forbidden to speak to each other?  You played messenger between us.

Remember when Bob and I broke up?  You supported me, you were on my side – saying I should do what’s best for me, and that you and I would always be friends.  You were there for me, in ways no one was.

When I broke up with Bob, I expected to lose some friends… I knew I would lose his friendship for good… the whole ‘staying-friends-with-exes’ never really works out when one person is against the break up.  I knew I’d lose your brother’s friendship; after all, you always take a best friend’s side.

Don’t you?

I guess we weren’t the friends I thought we were.

Do you know how much I think about you?  I’m sad that you forced me to choose between you and a boy.  You never told me you liked AMP… You never told me you had any feelings for him… You never told me you didn’t like him… You just told me that if AMP and I started dating, you and I could not be friends.

Was it out of a sense of loyalty to Bob, someone who has been a part of your life forever?  Or were you just done with our friendship?

When I think back to the years we were friends, I think of all the wonderful memories, all the adventures we had.  And, I miss the friend you were… The friend who supported me, not the one who gave an ultimatum… I miss the friend you used to be.

This post inspired by Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop

a status update at a time

I was late jumping on the Facebook bandwagon.  I resisted quite stubbornly at first… But then, one of AMP’s family members invited me, and I thought, ‘what better way to keep in touch with his family across the country.’  So, I joined.  I was determined to only have people who were far away – and then, it was people I went to school with who I haven’t talked to in eons.. and, then it was almost everyone.  Not to say that I have a ridiculous friends list. I’m still pretty picky about who is allowed to access my Facebook page (most people being on Limited Profile) and am careful about what I post on there… But, it’s a guilty pleasure of mine.. After all Facebook has the best gossip! haha

For Mama Kat’s workshop, I tried to think up an awkward conversation I’ve witnessed on Facebook, and well… I think that people post way too much information through their status updates.  There’s the girl who whines about how lonely she is and has no friends – and how horrible her husband is – until the next day when he’s “the best husband in the whole world.”  There’s the guy who updates his status every 5 minutes, apparently needing to keep an up-to-date records of his every movement.  There’s the girl who posts inappropriate pictures of herself, and then whines about how she’s called a slut.  And then there are the arguments played out for the world (or your entire friend list) to see.

One such argument was between a friend of mine, and a girl who was mortally offended at a comment my friend had made.  My friend works in a pediatric office and was complaining about some of the mothers there, and this other person took it personally and as an affront to herself as a single mother – even though it did not refer to her at all.  It was funny to read how riled up she got even though my friend pointed out it had nothing to do with her, and she even ended up blocking my friend from her friends list.  Talk about sensitive. 

I have a rule about status updates and uploading photos – before I do, I ask myself, “Will I regret posting this later?” and “Would I be embarrassed if my parents saw this?”  I think that in this digital age, people have lost some of their common sense, not realizing that the words we post may change the way people view us, not only with our friends, but even with future employers.

Make or Break

They say that a road trip will either make a friendship stronger, or destroy it.  I’ve been on two major road trips in my life that weren’t with my parents – a trip through the province and up into the Yukon, and a trip down to California.  The first was with a friend and the second was with my husband for our honeymoon. 

The first trip happened in the summer of 2005.  Background details are complicated but I’ll try.  Remember we talked about Bob?  Well, Georgie (not her real name) had known Bob all her life.  If you ask me, I would say that Georgie was in love with Bob, but she never admitted it – always saying he was like a brother to her.  But, I digress – She was supportive during our relationship, but when we broke up, she found it harder and harder to be supportive of me, and leaned more towards Bob – which could be considered fair since she’d known him longer.  But, almost a year after Bob and I broke up, Georgie and I went on a 2 week and a bit road trip, just the two of us, putting almost 6000kms on my little Jetta.  In all honesty, I love that we did it.  I probably would never want to do that same road trip again, but how many people can say they drove to the Yukon? 

Georgie and I are very different.  She’s outdoorsy, a tomboy.  I am a lot more girly, and prone to picking a hotel with a soft bed over camping.  But we survived, with minimal disagreements.  We camped.  We hiked.  I was willing to try almost anything, which is probably why we didn’t fight.  We were up north for about 2 weeks, before we started the long trip back home.  

As I mentioned, Bob and I had been broken up about a year – if we don’t count the month of lapsed judgment on my part in between. I’m sure I wasn’t expected to be a nun after that.  But, Georgie started teasing me about boys – not in a best friend kind of way – but in an interrogating, suspicious kind of way.  Maybe I should mention that just before we left on our road trip was the start of A and I getting together.  I hadn’t told Georgie yet, scared of her reaction.  She was half-in-love with A – bringing him cookies and calling him…. And, I didn’t want to mention anything till I was surer of what was going on with A and I. But, I guess she had figured it out on her own.  I was never good at hiding things.

She teased and annoyed me, but I refused to be baited.  We got home, and the next day she called and ranted.  She said that she couldn’t be my friend if I dated A.  That I had lied to Bob about why we broke up, saying I wasn’t ready for a relationship, and now was jumping into one with A.  Jumping in – after a year?  Seems more like wading or crawling. 

Sadly, our friendship ended that day.  We pretended for a few weeks – but our relationship was irreparably damaged.  And, to this day, 5 years later, I still link the death of our friendship to that road trip…  I was sad to find that Georgie wasn’t a true friend.  That she only wanted to be my friend if I did what she wanted me to do, be who she wanted me to be.  Don’t know how I kept ending up in these toxic relationships with people who wanted me to be different – wanted me to be their pawns. 

But the road trip made me nervous of all road trips.  When A wanted to go to California by car for almost 3 weeks as our honeymoon, I was incredibly nervous.  We’d been married a month, been living together a month – seemed early to test our relationship with a road trip.  But A is a true best friend.  He wants me to be me.  And we not only survived our first road trip, but we became closer.  We relished the time away from work and family and friends – the time for just the two of us. 

And that is my story of the two road trips – with two very different endings.