CARRIE, June 2016

Last night I called my best friend a bitch. 

No big deal except for the fact that friends weren’t exactly lining up for a stay-at-home mom looking after two kids with various diagnoses.

It was so dumb because it was supposed to have been the perfect evening for me, the first in weeks, leaving the kids with Jon after his shift and heading over to sip chilled white wine in Michelle’s little garden oasis.

“Oasis” literally, yes. if you’ve ever been to Yuma, especially the suburbs where we live, you know there’s not much to make a garden from. Gravel is our grass … 

But Michelle had managed to keep alive this neat little grove with a fountain helped by her neighbor, Richard, who donated the cutesy shrubs from his shop downtown. She nurses that greenery every day after work. And it was while we were standing next to the blue hibiscus, everything got scorched.

You see, the evening had been far from perfect until then. Michelle’s friends, Charmaine and Liza were also invited. 

Why wasn’t I told?

Like Michelle, they were both doctors and had lots of doctor-y things to share for an hour or so after I came. Like new tests for this, new research for that, troublesome patients there, idiotic insurance rules there. All of which went largely over my head.

I was the fifth wheel in Michelle’s perfectly groomed, educated, outwardly successful world, and you know how much I hate that.

Michelle and I had bonded last fall over the fact that she also has an autistic son. Ian is an adult now and is currently residing in an institution in San Diego and Michelle worries about him a lot, when she is not worrying about her messed up lawyer-ex who through some legal mumbo jumbo got to be the full-time guardian.

See, I can be good with friends as long as their lives are as messed up as mine, but not when they invite me to visit the shinier sides of their lives.

Clap your hands for me. 

Not.

I mean, what does that attitude say about me?

Perhaps this Monday it said that

– I had slept too little again
– argued with Jon instead of planning when we could have dinner together just us
– and had the tenth lengthy phone conversation with a mother who couldn’t understand that her perfect daughter is bullying my daughter.

But is that an excuse?

For what happened?

For this … ?

Michelle said, “These plants would fit perfectly in your garden. I can ask Richard to get some for you.”

And I said, “You know we don’t have time to do flowers.”

And she said, “If it’s important enough you make the time.”

And I flew at her.  

“You know damn well that we can barely get through the day …” 

And lots of other things that expounded on why a 37-year-old stay-at-home mom can’t just put her autistic son and her daughter with anxiety into a cupboard while she nurses flowers so they can survive the Arizona summer.

Unlike a 56-year-old single doctor with a big steady paycheck who may miss her son, but also doesn’t have to make any decisions concerning his welfare every single frigging minute.

I was being unfair but I was also angry. I hate those remarks and I had expected better from Michelle.

Charmaine and Liza sat in stunned silence at the perfectly polished garden table while Michelle and I traded verbal punches over at the fountain, and at some point, it all ended in “bitch” and me slamming the garden door and heading out into the dust where I belong.

I refused to cry when I came home, or explain anything to a surprised Jonathan who thought I’d be out much longer. I just went through the motions, with the kids, with the chores, with everything. 

‘Hollow’ can’t even begin to describe how I feel inside.

And then later that evening, Michelle calls. I’m not sure if I should take it, but of course I do.

No. Wait. I just wanted it to be Michelle.

But it’s not. It’s Jon’s brother.

He’s going to Africa again. Working. Yes, he was kidnapped and almost killed the last time. Could I help him broach the subject with Jon? Sure. Sure, Dave. No, it’s all right. The illustrations for “our” book? Yes, of course, you can write more chapters for it in Ouagadougou. That’s all right, too. Love ya. Bye.

It was never our book to begin with. 

One of Dave’s many half-assed projects and he got me to say half-yes because I felt sorry for him. Even though I could feel how much he was projecting. He wants me to save his identity of being an artist when I can’t even save my own.

And it almost made me feel … something. Okay, maybe not really. But it was better than nothing. Like helping my daughter make necklaces.

But now Dave’s “book” number seven is finished. Maybe 100 pages in. All done. Trust me. 

And I feel nothing again. About … me.

Perhaps that’s the problem.

I have no independent identity.

I mean, I am … mom, I guess. Caretaker of my autistic son. Wife (a couple of times a year at least).

But what am I really? 

What is just ‘me’?

If I had still known that perhaps those doctors wouldn’t have pissed me off so much.

Is that the reason I get angry so often? Can it be that easy to fix?

No.

Of course not. It’s never that easy.

But … maybe it’s what I have to finally do. Something. About.

Something else than being a victim.

Now.

After all those years.

And then I will call Michelle, and hope she’ll forgive me for being a bitch.

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End of Renaissance – part I

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Photo credits to follow!

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Song: Renaissance – Can You Understand?

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