I prefer my drama on the screen

 

The TCM Classic Film Festival is almost upon us! My flights are booked. My hotel reservation is confirmed. Three of my four airport limo rides are lined up.* My girl cat, Connie, is healthy so I will miss – but not be worried about – her when I'm gone.

Thursday will begin with breakfast at Mel's with fellow festival goers. I'm seeing a former coworker for lunch at The Grove. Then Thursday evening the movies start. Four glorious days of old movies on the big screen!

It's Wednesday that's the problem. I had been looking forward to dinner with my oldest friend's adult daughter the night I arrive. She is in her late twenties now and has really gotten her life together. She's working on her relationship with her boyfriend, she has a good job as an optometrist assistant, is consulting a nutritionist to get to the bottom of her long-standing gastrointestinal issues. I held her as a baby and want to hear more about the positive direction her life is taking.

Of course, my oldest friend (her mother) is fucking everything up. As is her wont. 

After a period of being incommunicado, last week she resumed emailing and texting me. She can't stand her living arrangement. She wants to sell everything† and move back here. She has major health issues but can't get it together to submit her application for Medi-Cal. She says she really needs to know that I care about her.

Oh, for fuck's sake! I keep thinking about all the times I've reached out to show support but my efforts have gone unacknowledged. (I don't know why, exactly, but this one remains a bur under my saddle.) 

I responded as I always do. "Get yourself healthy. If you need help paying for therapy, let me know. Don't even think about coming back here because you'll still hate the weather and miss your cousin. Instead of searching for a new boyfriend, try to make friends."

Her response was a slap in the face. She doesn't want "a boyfriend," she wants someone to care about. She then attached a self-serving list of all the people she has "taken care of" during her adult life. None of them were friends. Yet here I am, a mere friend, and she expects me to provide proof that I "care?"

Also, that list of people she's taken care was quite a re-write of history. More than one person she named extended themselves mightily for her, not the other way around, and at least two provided her with a roof over her head. When the person you're talking to doesn't share your reality, it's hard to find common ground.

My oldest friend lives in Hesperia, 90 minutes away from LA. I didn't invite her Wednesday night's dinner with me and her daughter because the logistics are beyond me. I only have about three hours to spend that evening – after all, my festival festivities begin Thursday morning – and I don't drive. 

Her daughter said she would get her mother there. But now I don't want to see her mother at all. I'm too angry.

Here's the push-pull of it all. I have known my oldest friend since Kindergarten. More than 60 years. I have loved her and have so many dear memories. So much laughter. So many treasured moments.

But for the last 15 years, this relationship has been hideously unbalanced. I feel an obligation to her and the times we shared, so I do what I can. 

But dammit! I'm sick of her drama! I've waited all year for this film festival – and with the Paramount deal, it may be the last one – and I resent her for throwing shade over it. I know she's bipolar, I know she's unhealthy. I'm sorry all of this is happening to her.

Still, there's a limit to how much I can give when I get so precious little in return.

 

*Gotta take care of #4 today. 

†This is stupid. She was evicted from her last apartment over unpaid rent and her car was repossessed.