The Girls Are Fighting Again

Melanie and Scarlett are once again doing battle for my soul. Whenever what I just naturally -- and often quite passionately -- want to do is at odds with what I know I should do, I conjure up the redoubtable heroines of Gone with the Wind. Scarlett is impulsive, willful, and most of all, a realist. Melanie is above all decent. She sees the best in everyone and wants those in her sphere to be happy and comfortable.

I always want to be Melanie. But at heart I am more Scarlett.

No one stirs up this conflict more than my oldest friend. We've been friends since Kindergarten. I love her to the moon and back. But she's bipolar. This condition first presented itself about 17-20 years ago, when we were in our late 40s. She began unraveling, but in small ways, as it became obvious that her relationship with a kind, well-meaning man was not going to result in marriage. I regret that I didn't truly understand what I was seeing at this time. Perhaps I could helped. But, in my own defense, she was seeing a shrink. 

Sure, she was smoking again, gaining weight and running up her credit cards. But she also had a good and secure job, managing the practice of pediatric cardiologist in the burbs, and she had her home: a 3BR ranch on a decent-sized lot.  When her love affair finally ended because she kept pushing for matrimony, she spun out. 

She had to move to Southern California. NOW. Chicagoland was too flat and winters were too cold and dark. (Um ... you've lived here 50 years and you're just noticing that NOW? Oh, shut up. Scarlett.) She quit the job for the doctor who appreciated her and sold that house in a short sale for less than $100 (!) and took off for Beverly Hills.

Now of course I told her at the time that this was not a wise course. Yes, Chicago's housing market was depressed in the 2010s and that, combined with a refinance, left her with little equity in her home. But it was still 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths with a yard and a garage. There's always value to that. It was obviously only a matter of time before it would be worth more again. Why not wait two years? Put a little money aside, build equity. But she was in the grips of mania. She had to get out of Chicago. NOW.

Fast forward to 2024. She's unemployed and subsisting on Medicare and Medicaid. Her landlady is trying to evict her, and she can't find alternative Section 8 housing. She's diabetic and suffering from a chronic kidney condition. She can't walk without a cane.

Her daughter, now back here in the Midwest to visit her father's family, drove past her childhood home and snapped a photo, which she shared with her mom.

"Oh, Gal! I fucked up!" So read the text I got from Friday. She now understands that the house she walked away from 15 years ago for less than $100 is now worth (gulp) at least $275,000.* Not the news she needs to lift her spirits when she's consulting a public aid lawyer to keep her rental roof over her head.

Here's what I posted about her life in California in real time, back in 2010.

I was right. I have always been right. She should have listened to me.

The Scarlett in me really, really wants to say all that. I want to ask why the fuck she didn't listen to a single syllable I had to say. Does she think I'm stupid? Or did my wise counsel just not fit into her harebrained scheme of the moment? I want to hear her tell me I was right.

I know what Melly would do. Melanie would tell her that she did what she thought was best at the time and why look back.

I'm not quite full-metal Melly yet. I ignored the text.

Instead I sent her an atta-girl postcard. On the back I wrote, "This isn't a defeat, it's a detour. Keep phoning and emailing in search of a new home. Something good will come your way. Love, Gal."

That's the best I can do. 

*That may be an unfair comparison. If she had waited a year or two, as I'd counseled, she could have sold it for about $180,000 and likely took off for California with $30,000 in profit.