So-o-o peppy! And yet, - so-o-o-o sad. I couldn't pin-point the reason for my melancholy. The New Year was met calmly and in the midst of the family, I am attending Al Anon meetings and sessions with Mr. P. I should be feeling liberated and healthy. I am not.
Last night I went to the Al Anon meeting. Afterwords a friend and I went for a bite to eat. We talked about a bunch of things, when I happened to mention how Janine, my past acquaintance, always ditched me for her other friends. My friend said: "How awful!"
The hardest thing to do for me is to confront friends. I never told Janine, how much I was hurt by her abandonment, no - betrayals - when she chose to completely forget about me during our travels, in favor of others.
At a meeting last night someone shared a similar story. I felt numb and helpless.
I told my friend with whom I was out eating: "You think, that's awful? As awful as what you did to me the night of the potluck dinner at church?!" I was not impolite or even aggravated. I only decided to let her know my feelings.
On the said night, she and I put together a little plan. I won't tell you what it was exactly, because I don't want someone to know about it. That is not the main point of the story.
My family arrived to the church cafeteria on time. We sat at a table. I took out some papers from my purse and told my husband and kids to use them to show that the rest of the seats at the table were occupied. "Our friends, the ... (her family name), are coming too. We should sit together!"
Her husband was already there. I tried to invite him to sit with us, but he didn't know the plan and had no reason to want to do it. He realized, though, that his wife mistakenly thought that, dinner will start at 7:30 pm instead of 6. She was going to be too late!.
I understood that our plan failed. A bit put off, I told my family to let other people sit at our table and tried to deal with my disappointment. After a while, my friend arrived, to almost empty tables. I tried to greet her, but she just looked past me and went to a different table, where she spent the rest of the evening talking to someone else with her back to the room and to me.
She is not a safe person for me: too many issues, too little interest in making our friendship work. She has some other people with whom she spends time, and even driving to and from Al Anon meetings she prefers to talk to others in the car. I get that. She is not interested. Then why make plans with me only to break them at her first inconvenience?
I told her about my disappointment last night. She was shocked to hear it, because she was oblivious to my feelings at potluck dinner and blocked out our entire scheme. She apologized to me, saying that she didn't mean to do it.
The thing is, even though I didn't share with her my thoughts that she was not a safe person for me, she really is not! I get sucked into trying to help her with her problems, but it's a one sided relationship.
I, probably, should treat it as a loss and count my blessings. It could be much worse. I could be getting deeper and deeper into the mire of her problems without any returned efforts or even attention from her. I should consider myself lucky that the therapy and Al Anon helped me see things as they are and not as my cowardly, starving for real friendship heart wants them to be!
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