Last Straws..

There are a lot of things of late that has set me spinning. It’s not just one thing, but also a number of things, that seem to bring an avalanche of hurt.

For a while, I can pretend everything is all right, I can shrug off things that build up, or I can bury it deep inside, so that I don’t feel any longer.

I’m trying to do the latter right now, and it’s not easy.

There’s so much inside that simmers, that I feel that I will explode if I do not express it. But I don’t want rage to be let out, because once it does, it can’t be taken back again, once harsh words are spoken, they can’t be unspoken. Nor can words, once read, ever be forgotten, if they cause hurt. That is something I am very aware of, deeply. It’s something I experienced a few days ago.

Words can be a weapon, or they can lend healing, right now the words swirling inside have little to do with healing. But I need to get them out, before I break something.

There’s only so much someone who is rather passive can take, before it boils over, and I’ve reached that point.

There have been many whom I have been friends with. Four in particular I have supported, when they needed that, fully supported when they were in really difficult straights. It might have been only a few months, or it could have been almost two years, but I honestly didn’t try to ask too much in return.

Apparently asking anything is too much, because if we accept someone into our home and support him or her, it’s our responsibility, and they shouldn’t be obligated to do a thing, beyond what is comfortable to them.

That’s what I’ve learned lately, and learned it painfully.

When I’d asked one friend to cat sit while my mother came to visit, the friend left, the day after I met up with my mother, despite one cat being sick and needing medicine. Being rather upset at the lack of communication and consideration, when I had no chance at all to find alternatives for care for the cat in question, not even knowing that the friend had gone until 36 hours after the fact, I was in quite a state. I’d paid for the friends’ travel to here, bought an enormous amount of food, treated to lunch, as did my mother. So to have the friend leave without any care at all of the impact it would cause, I did not know how to handle it.

What that resulted in, was to make a serious error in judgment. In this, I take full responsibility for getting hurt. I was hopeful of something positive occurring, something I have no business expecting. One particular person I helped 7 years ago, and throughout the years. I’ve listened, I’ve encouraged, I’ve been a personal cheerleader of sorts, to help. It’s rare that I’d ever ask a thing of him, and since his world is all about what’s going on in his mind, he’s content that way; he’d often call just for an ego boost.

To be fair, he sometimes gave that to me in turn, but then he’d land a blow when I least expected it, when it was truly uncalled for. He had asked if he could return here, after being gone over 5 years. After the fiasco from the few days before, I said he could, without obligations, without expectations. Just that we would be able to mutually help one another to get our lives straightened out. He has ping-pong’d all over Northern and Southern California, literally within 3 weeks, he’s moved about 6 times, and he’s currently in the car on the road again, after moving 3 times in less than a week.

While he was here, he kept telling me how his last living situation was rather difficult, to put it mildly. The one who owned the house, constantly clinging, needing emotional support, in ways that drove him around the bend, not very relaxing at all. While he was here all of four days, he constantly ignored her calls, and 22 hours before he left here, which was only 33 hours ago, he’d written to her telling her that even though I’d not said it, he realized I needed him here, and that after 7 years of my being a true and loyal friend, he felt it was his turn to do the same for me.

I spoke to him moments ago, after venting some of the hurt and anger, which he did not feel he deserved. He did help while he was here, I do not deny that in any way, shape or form. What hurts is that he stated quite clearly that he cannot abide it here, because of the atmosphere, and since I live alone, that can but involve me. From the moment he said he wanted to come here, throughout his entire stay, I constantly told him there was no obligation. He kept saying how much I’d changed for the better, but obviously he liked the broken me better, the irrational and clingy. I wasn’t that at all, I never gave a guilt trip, I never pressured, I did not ask for much at all. It was that letter he wrote, that he will likely precede arrival to, that hurt. That which changed my feeling that he could return, for in that he showed he’d felt only 22 hours before that it was his turn to be a true and loyal friend, and what else could have changed it, but me?

Basically, the help I needed, was on a diet he had constantly tried to get me to try. For the last two years, it was often the sole conversation. When he arrived, we went through and threw out a lot of food I had, and he paid for food to replace it, separated frozen food into meals for two. Even if it was just for a few weeks, to get through the hardest part of it, I would not be at all upset. But with only four days, and the diet very preparation intensive, I simply cannot do it myself. He’d agreed to do most of the prep work and cleaning after, if I showed him how and could stick to it. He was very encouraging for the diet and understood it is not something I can do alone. At the time, at least, he seemed to understand.

Part of this is that my back has been giving me serious problems since early July. I have been on disability, am currently on morphine, and see a neurosurgeon in a month. Just simple things, getting a pan out of the cupboard, put me in more pain 10 days ago, than I have gone through this entire time. When I went to physical therapy, the day before he left, I could not walk out of the office; I had to lie on an ice pack for an hour in order to get to my car.

To put it plainly, I’m scared. My physical therapist has told me that I cannot keep trying to push myself to do things, or I will end up a cripple. That told to the one who left while my mother was here. That friend was here when it happened, saw how much pain I was in, but left soon after, regardless. I even told that friend that I only wished them to stay for the cats’ sake, still the friend left them alone.

The friend who left two days ago, well.. he has shown what being a true and loyal friend deserves, a tattoo with the words “Sucker Here” plainly visible in my forehead.

What I’ve learned in this, is that I do not matter to more than a very few people. It has been something I’ve worried about, something I’ve feared, but now.. now it’s something I know. I’ve learned not to make close friends, only shallow acquaintances. I’ve learned not to extend myself, I’ve learned that it is not acceptable to need help; only perfectly healthy people deserve friends, unless they’re someone other than me. I’ve learned that people really don’t care at all, except that they are happy, they can walk away in the face of pain.

Or else they believe that I’m a hypochondriac, and if they do, I invite them to speak to the various doctors I go to.

Of course there are some exceptions to that rule, those I already trust with all my heart. One in particular is DarkRen. He has seen me at my worst and still he is there. Another is Karalys and her Joe. I do not paint everyone with this brush of uncaring, but the ones who have had interaction in personal, real life, have shown me, for the most part, what is right and wrong. Those who I see face-to-face, not meaning those that I speak to online or over the phone only.

This latest was the last straw. I’m done.