Five Friends and Fifty years a blog a day for five days introducing you to the five people that helped me raise the wonderful girls I have today. Watching five different personalities, that was all productive and good in a crazy sort of way; has made them interesting productive adults.
This is some of the things I do know; by living fifty years. I am really as nice as people think I pretend to be. I don't ever want to appear to be selfish. I may be a bit in respect to thinking that I have worked hard and wish others thought I deserved to have more. I am a jealous person. I am more so; now than ever. I wonder why I have worked and loved more than most and have less. I am basically homeless; really with only myself to blame. "Farther Along"; a song we sang often at the tiny Methodist Church we went to when I was little, helps me not to live with enormous regret. Farther along I really do hope to understand why? Friends, family, and work are all things I strived to put all my effort into.
The Housewives of Any Town, USA had nothing on us. In my heart and mind I take credit for us coming together. I think I was the favorite friend to all of them. I think they all liked me the most. There were times that I did things that I really didn’t want to do, just because one of them asked me to. Neisse I always said and still think she could talk you into living if you were dying.
Proof being that I hid under a bridge in the middle of the night, that’s another story.
Friends I had the greatest. I say had; because I have lost the bond we had along the way. I would like to think that it was just as much them as me, but my life changed thus my place with them changed. It just recently occurred to me what I lost. I can hear my sister –in-law talk about her daughter and Black Bird’s son playing together and it makes me so jealous. I wished I had not gotten so wrapped up in catching a husband that after fifteen years, I still haven’t caught.
My children are having children and I realize more all my circle of friends did for me. There were five wonderful friends that made my life so much easier. I took way too much advantage of what they would do for me. At the time I thought my way of life then, was the way it would remain. In time I would repay them for all they did for me. I did not do this, instead around the time they needed me most my world came crashing down around me. I have said many times, “don’t ever think you have it made, anything can happen. Happen it did. It happened just when I was living exactly the life I had planned.
We all had coffee just about every week-end. We were the click of clicks. Thick as thieves to say the least, we were loyal to each other to the end. I had three little girls. The first of my three girls were twins.
It has taken me this long to get to the second friend. I may have to continue her story another day. I really got baby fever when the first of the five friends had her little boy. He would stay with me as an infant. For some odd reason I thought that having kids would give me something to do while my husband was out and about. I was not wrong, it gave me more to than I ever imagined. It also gave my closest friend at the time lots to do. She was more of a mothering/cleaning/thrifty person than I was. Seemed I tried to do everything at once, never getting one thing done.
She would come into my house and yell “I can’t stand this mess!” With that said, she would fly in picking up and putting away all the mess. I was ok at washing and drying laundry, but putting it up? That was a different story. I hated washing dishes; it was obvious by the pile that was always in my sink. I really meant it when I said I took advantage of what I let my friends do for me. She could wash more dishes faster than anyone ever and get them clean to boot. She would start washing and I would start emptying the leftovers from the refrigerator. To this day we say that I would clean the refrigerator every time Neisse started washing dishes. The dishes were not all she took charge of; she could make the girls mind much better than I could. Just a month or so ago she said that I was convinced that children were not to be spanked until they reached a certain age. My girls will tell you today that they were better because, my mama and all her friends spanked us. I can still see Neisse with a switch. It is still funny. She loved me enough to hang with me and all my mess. Years of seeing each other almost every day ended really when we needed each other the most.
I with some advice of my friends decided that my husband was not going to change, even after the terrible pain he had caused me. I was now going to be different than any of my friends. I would be broke, working two jobs and hoping to find someone to make my life happy and complete. I told Neisse once when I had not seen her in a while ( I had seen her every day for years) and now; I am telling her I am sorry that I was busy trying to work and catch a husband. That may have been the worst thing to say at the time. It was not long after that, her husband got sick. She needed me then, much more than I had ever needed her to wash dishes, spank my kids or clean my house. After he died I sat with her on her porch. I realized how right she was when she talked of how alone she felt. The guilt struck me hard, because even though she wasn't speaking directly of me, I was too, busy to be there. She told me when I said something negitive about my ex's wife, that she really liked her. I knew then that I had lost my loyal-the-end, thick-as-thieves status.
The rest of the five meant just as much in different ways. One, I think I became her friend just because I did not want to have her as an enemy. The other was her sister. The sisters were friends with Neisse since they were little. Part of the circle that brought us together. My sister-in-law fit right in, making it five. The happiest times of my life were with them raising my girls. Black Bird and Sis are really close now. Neisse and sister, not-the-enemy- one the other sister are close. I am loved from a far, but still loved. I am just not so included. There I am jealous once again.
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