Okay, I am going to begin this post with the understanding that I am going to come across as a whiny child. I'm fine with that. Cause it's my blog and I'll whine if I want to.
In the past, I have written a few posts about one of my closest friends and the turmoil we've had in our relationship from time to time.
In the ten years that I've known her, two particularly huge things have happened to me. I met and married O, and we embarked on this journey to become parents. E has had a difficult time being happy for me when wonderful things are unfolding. In the weeks leading up to my wedding, it seemed that she did everything possible to ruin my happiness. As we were completing our home visits with our social worker and were about to find out if she was going to recommend us as adoptive parents, E went missing. She said it was just too hard to see us on the road to achieving something that she'd always wanted and that, in her mid-40's (at that time), she'd probably never have.
For my own sake, I took a MAJOR step back at that point, and stopped communicating with her for several months until our little group of girlfriends was gathering from around the country at my house for few days. While the trip had been organized before she and I went our separate ways, she still planned to come and I decided to bury the hatchet, at least for the duration of her visit. First of all, I'd never want anyone to be uncomfortable in my home and secondly, I thought it took a lot of courage for her to fly in for that weekend - that it must have been really important to her.
As the weekend wound down and we had a little bit of time to ourselves, she broke down crying - apologizing for her actions and asking for forgiveness. Of course I forgave her, and while our relationship is not as close as it once was, we do talk on the phone every couple of days.
Since that time she has seemingly been very supportive of and excited for us re: adoption.
So, since all this news about Smiley has come up in the past couple of weeks, I've noticed that she's been a little bit short - that her affect seems a bit flat. BUT, she's also been sick with some sort of respiratory nightmare since Christmas and is only in the last getting better. I'd be short and flat too, so I hadn't thought much of it.
Another thing I should probably tell you that 75% of our conversations (or more) are about her. She really likes/needs to talk about herself. I am completely fine with that. I've never had a big need to blah blah blah on about myself (except here!) and if I do, I have lots of friends who are great listeners. (She is, however, a great listener when things are going badly.)
It seems like when the attention shifts too much to me, as when I was planning my wedding and when we were getting our initial foster/adoption stuff done, she seems threatened and has to do something to shift it right back to herself.
Thursday we were talking about Smiley, and just how crazy this situation is - how challenging it is to be standing in our shoes, so very close to having a child of our own yet still in limbo.
There was a pause in the conversation and she said, "I've been thinking about adopting."
Even as I write this, I recognize that I sound so petty but my first thought was, "You have got to freaking be kidding me."
For anyone else, I would have been so excited and would have immediately started sharing all that I've learned from these years of gathering information and reading blogs. Instead, I was mad, because it just felt so eerily similar to the days before my wedding when I was on the verge of something life-changing and purely wonderful, and she had to shift the attention back to herself.
Yes, I recognize that it could all be very innocent - that she's seen us getting closer to parenthood and has started thinking about taking steps to become a mom herself. Yes, I recognize it's likely that I am being an overreacting butt.
But it just seems to be entirely too coincidental - the timing of everything. It seems very passive aggressive.
I don't know. I'm just going to take a couple of days to get over myself and I guess I'll go from there.
