Mom and the Problem of Friendship

"Silence is the true friend that never betrays." ~ Confucius

Here's a surprise.  My mom actually has friends.  I mean, she invites people to go to the store with her.  She invites them into her condo and talks to them for hours.  This is groundbreaking.  The whole time I was growing up, she never had any friends.  Of course, it's hard to have friends when you live with my father.

He had a habit of wanting to fuck anybody my mom knew in any way.  That was the way his first "affair" (See, even that word's too good to use to describe his relationships.) began.  It was this woman my mom worked with.  Then he was trying to strike something up with the mother of a friend of mine.  She had the good sense to get the hell away from him.  After that first woman, he found that it worked much better to use me as bait.

The other problem was, how can you have friends when you know that sooner or later you'll have to explain what that entire extra family is doing living there.  You have to explain why you're sleeping with the daughter while your husband is sleeping in a separate bedroom with someone two years older than your daughter.  That will definitely put a damper on the whole friend thing.  I know it did for me.

From the time I was 12 until forever, I never invited anyone over to my house.  The last time I did, she immediately went back to school and started spreading rumors.  They were all true, but it didn't make my school life any easier for me.   I was having enough trouble dealing with the repercussions of my own bad behavior. 

But I digress.  My mom always kept other people at arm's length.  She'd be friendly with other women at work, but that's about as far as any of her relationships ever went.  In recent years, I've turned into my mother in that respect.  The reasons are different, though.

Her condominium complex is home to a lot of older people and she's developed varying levels of friendships with many of them.  She's very friendly with the lady who lives upstairs.  Now why do I find this difficult?

I guess I feel a little betrayed...she got to the age of 65 and turned into somebody else.  Or something.  Maybe I'm a little envious.  She has lots of free time to cultivate new relationships.  By the time I get home every day, I'm pretty worn down.  Then, on good days, I have yoga to do.  I like to read, too.  On the weekends, my mom is always with me.  I don't think that's very conducive to developing friendships. 

That's just an excuse for my lack of interest in developing any relationships.  Relationships have "all been bad...kinda been like Verlaines and Rimbauds," to quote Dylan.  I'm pretty fond of my online relationships, though.  I never have to go to movies with them or try to work in a lunch date. It fits my schedule really well.

I just keep digressing today.  Oh well.  I'm glad my mom has finally reached a point in her life when she can trust that it will be okay to have friends.  I can see that it makes her happier.  As for me, I'll just keep smiling vaguely at people when they ask me to do things with them.  Um, no, but thanks very much. 

America held hostage day 1650

Bushism of the day:

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005