There Be Friends Here

4 March 2008

 

It’s raining again. A cold rain, slicing to the bone. Every Tuesday, every Friday, for weeks now it has been rain or snow. It chills me, entices me to lay down and sleep, forgetting the pain and fear in my life right now.

 

I thought I was going to have to vote in the rain. I thought there may be long lines, so I took a portable chair. And I wore a sweater, and took a book, and water, ready for a long wait. But I was nearly the only one there. So I lay all my ton of belongings I carried on my aching back in a chair, and went to the voting booth and did my civic duty. My mother never missed a vote, and she instilled in me the importance of voting. I still believe in it somehow, although it seems things never change, but only get worse.

 

The rheumatologist’s office called about the insurance coverage for the Reclast. I don’t think she knew what she was talking about, but it sounded like I would have to pay over $1,000 to do this! Crying again, with the rain always around me, I told her I couldn’t even pay my bills right now. She gave me a phone number to call the company. I couldn’t right away. I feel so defeated at each little thing I cannot do, each little thing that stands in my way, each hoop I have to jump through. And I get depressed and just cannot make that next phone call; not today, not right now, still in tears, feeling like a worthless piece of humanity. Tomorrow, maybe, but not today. Not right now. I can’t take one more rejection.

 

Yesterday, I see my doctor. I really like Dr. R. He is kind, and funny, and smart. He will probably finish up his residency this year, and be gone, and I will be lost, starting all over again with someone new who may be terrible. Dr. R. listens to me, expresses his opinion, but allows me to be part of my own medical care. That is important to me.

 

Yesterday, of course, I cried when talking of this possible (probably impending; I do not see how I can escape it) mutilation of my genitalia. He assured me that what I felt was not true, that someone would love me again. I wish I believed that.

 

We talked of the financial burden, of how I cannot pay for my medications or doctor visits anymore. I have $10 on me that will buy me a little tobacco, some potato chips, and some bread and tomatoes maybe. I do have a stocked pantry and fridge, so I can survive for now with food. But I don’t feel like eating; I just feel sick and depressed. He wants me to go on antidepressants, of course, and I ask him “If you were in my shoes, wouldn’t you be depressed”? He has to answer yes, of course, and tells me his psychiatrist wife and he argue exactly this point. Some depression is situational, and medication is not the answer, he says. But being depressed changes the brain chemistry and makes it more difficult to get out of the depression, she argues. I believe him, not her. I read that a new report asserts what I have believed for some time: that we are over-medicated, and that some of these antidepressants do nothing to help that talking therapy couldn’t do better and quicker. This I believe. What I need to lift me out of depression is some help to get out of this poverty, to feel like a human being who deserves to be loved, to feel good about myself again, to have the things I need, to not have to worry about how I will feed my beautiful cats, my children.

 

So often in this terrible time in my life, I feel totally alone. No one calls; no one offers help; no one visits. And I sit alone and feel abandoned, lost, and like not a soul truly cares about me. And that makes me sob from somewhere very deep within me, a core that has been broken and shattered in the past, that does not believe, and that fears and believes the worst, always.

 

And just when I am about to fully believe that I am alone and that no one cares, there is a breeze that flickers and opens a door, and I look astonished as love begins to pour my way.

 

There be friends here. I am not alone.

 

Thursday, my old friend K., who moved and no longer lives here, called to tell me she needed to pay an old traffic fine, and that she would drive over and run me around for errands and visit for awhile.

 

I always pray for someone to somehow ask if they can run me around to do errands.  And that prayer is almost never answered. Instead, I take the bus, in the rain or snow, walking part of the way, hurting in every part of my body, so that I may get my medications, get my mail out, get food, get cat food, go to the doctor, whatever it is I need to do. And I am weary, so weary, when I am done. I can do nothing else; I am completely drained. It is a nightmare I wish would end, but I see no end. Even if a car dropped from the sky for me, I could not drive it. I have terrible driving anxiety, and can’t drive. It frustrates me terribly. I used to love to drive. I drove from Florida to Ohio, I drove around the South, I took the reins of a large van during a long summer trip around the country, and drove the Ventura Highway. It was freedom and it was beautiful. But somehow that, too, has been taken from me.

 

So I must ask or pray for help that rarely comes. It isn’t that the few friends I do have don’t help because they don’t wish to. They don’t have cars themselves, for the most part. Or they don’t live nearby, and can’t afford the gas. And that is not fair to them.

 

But K. offered, and I was so happy.

 

I waited. And waited. I waited until I had a half-hour before the post office closed, because I had a large envelope I had to mail to apply for emergency energy assistance. It had been waiting for two weeks, and I desperately needed it mailed NOW. I wrote a note for K. and stuck it on the door, and walked to the post office. I had no choice. I got things taken care of there, and had to pick up my medications at the pharmacy. I kept watching for K., not knowing what she drove, not even knowing what she looks like now, because she has suffered from so much over the years since I last saw her. She is bipolar, and has gone through hell with that illness. On top of that, she has had all sorts of physical problems, and had her neck operated on not that long ago. But she was given the okay to drive, so she was coming, to see me, to help me. I was excited about seeing her as much as anything else. A friend wanted to see me! A friend wanted to come to my home and spend time with me! I was so looking forward to this.

 

But I had no choice on the two errands. And I came home, crying, alone, aching in my sad body. She had not been there.

 

I checked the phone, and there were numerous messages from her. She had gotten hung up at the Courthouse. It had taken her hours to get it straightened out. She was still coming, she was on her way, and she would be here. She felt terrible that I apparently had to go out before she got there. But she was coming.

 

And she did arrive. We talked like old times, and hugged, and I felt so much less alone. She even helped with the cats by scooping the litterboxes as I fed them! That is friendship, believe me. Ten cats and seven litterboxes is dedication. Her help meant a lot to me, drained terribly as I was. And we managed to get out in time to get to a shopping center and pick up a couple of things I needed (an envelope sealer and a couple of new litter scoops). She even bought me the litter scoops. And she brought me some gifts of things she no longer needed or wanted: an old but very working warming and massaging “chair”, some toys for the cats, a sweater, and some other odd things. I told her I felt like it was Christmas and she laughed.

 

She wasn’t done. She and her husband had talked, and decided there was enough money for her to take me out to dinner. At Red Lobster, my favorite. We had a wonderful dinner, with a wonderful server who was delighted we weren’t upset with him for taking a bit too long to get to us because he desperately needed a smoke break. Both of us being smokers, we just laughed it off and said “No problem.” He served with a flourish the rest of the meal, making me smile.

 

It was late, so K. asked if she could crash on the couch. I was going to ask her, but she beat me to it. I offered her R.’s room, but she didn’t want to deal with the “bad vibes”, and said the couch was perfectly fine. I got her some clean sheets and blankets and pillowcases, and got her set up. She was happy and told me the new place felt very comfortable and homey. J. told me that, too, and I am very happy the few people who have chosen to come over feel that about my space.

 

In the morning, she left, and we hugged goodbye. I thanked her profusely for all her help and support, and she took off into the morning light.

 

Maybe I have had the wrong friends, I think. There has always been something in my life that has made friendships tenuous for me, and I don’t understand why. I do with a few, but not with so many. And I have lost so many over the last 10-20 years. Some from death, it is true, but most are still alive; they just no longer speak to me.

 

I can understand it with R. She neglected her poor dog and cat, and I called the Humane Society on her, after waiting and talking to other people in the neighborhood, many of whom were itching to call, but didn’t. So I sighed and became the pariah once again. And she would no longer speak to me. She does now, the rare times I see her, and all I can think about is that her child is now in prison, the child I watched grow from a baby to an adult, the child who raped a young woman. I know the way she treated him growing up, and I tried to be the adult on the outside he could come to for sanity. But I guess I did not do a very good job of that, and I am crying inside that he turned out to be a rapist. It just tears me up.

 

I don’t understand it with H. and M., or S., or K2, or T.. All I did with H. and M. was question M. Apparently, this was not allowed, and they refused to speak to me after that. S. apparently thinks I insulted her religion, and she believes feral cats should be shot. Other than the fact that that particular statement made me feel like saying I thought she should be shot, I still thought I could just educate her and tried to. But she no longer wanted anything to do with me. K2 got upset with me for various reasons, and did realize she had been too judgmental, and came back into my life briefly. But now she no longer answers my e-mails, and I wonder if she has once again left my life. T. accused me of not taking good care of my cats, something I really do not understand. She took me to the vet numerous times. She’s seen the cats, and knows how friendly and happy they are. I had matting problems with two of them at the time of the move, which she helped us with, and that is the only thing I can think of that could possibly have brought her to this view. I don’t understand the whole thing; I only understand that we are no longer friends.

 

Others have been friends as long as we worked together, or lived close, but they drifted away after I or they left the job, or they moved. Somehow they just did not care enough to continue the friendship outside of those confines.

 

It hurts me, deeply, when a friendship is ended. Friendship is important to me; it is a deep connection that means a lot to me. And my failure in friendship is still something I do not understand.

 

But there be friends here, and not just K.

 

I am on a cat group on the Internet; I’ve been there for some nine years. It is a remarkable group, rarely combative, always supportive. We’ve been through the deaths of cats and dogs, the new adoptions of the same; we’ve been through parents and children and siblings dying, and even a few members of the group. We’ve been through members having cancer, flesh-eating bacteria, and all kinds of health problems. We support, we purr, we pray, and sometimes we even help out financially.

 

I got a letter from a dear lady in the group from Australia, with a beautiful, homemade card. That’s when I found out that another member, P., along with V., had organized to pay off my $300 plus veterinary bill! I called my vet, and sure enough, they had paid it off, with enough left over for the next vet visit. I cried. I cry a lot, as you can probably tell. Gentle kindness can make me cry even more than intolerance or insensitivity.

 

Now, I have the precancerous condition. And I told J., a dear friend in the group who happens to work for a gynecologist oncologist. She asked the doctor if he would be willing to look at my records and give a second opinion, and he agreed to do so at no cost to me.

 

And then word spread to P. And she and V. have organized again, asking the group for help for me to get through this, asking for everything from cash to seeds and cat food.

 

I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of the sweet generosity and kindness of these people whom I have never even met. I cry at their kindness. I cry for the fact that I am such a mess right now that I need their help. I cry feeling that I don’t deserve this help and this kindness. I cry at their sweetness, and that these wonderful souls, many of whom have been through hell themselves, are willing to reach out and help me, even if it is just with a card to brighten my day. And that means the world to me.

 

There be friends here. I may not know their faces, but I know their hearts, and I treasure them.