Friends In Fifty Something Years

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. Time passes, life happens and things change. I got side tracked and didn't do the five in five days. Side tracked these days to me is mainly not feeling really great. It is either a sad day, a bad day or just don't feel good. Fifty wasted years is what has honestly taken over how I feel. The last decade of that fighting for something I will never have. That is a normal way of life. I am homeless, I owe every waking minute to people that have helped me. My five friends are just shit out of luck, because the debt I have to repay will never be finished. Now I know that I am not good enough and never could have been no matter how hard I tried. Now that I am way over weight and unattractive all I can do is not rest. Stay off the couch for sure. To my friends that I have not written of yet I will squeeze in my lawn mower story. I have mentioned that lawn mowers hated me. On one hot July day; a Sunday, because that was the only day that I didn't work in the Sewing Factory then go to wait tables. I am at the back of my house; that I don't have anymore, because I sold it to get married. I am pulling the cord and the damn thing won't start. The one thing I knew that sometime would work was to take the breather off and pour gas in the hole covered by the filter. Once you did this, holding your hand over the exposed area, pull the cord the gas somehow got to a place where the mower would start. On this Sunday that was not working. I am cussing, crying and sweating like a pig. My friend that I didn't want for an enemy came by to visit; before I knew she was even there, she was pulling out of the drive. I just assumed she didn't see me. She had just enough time to go home and drive her riding lawn mower through Lexington to my house. Without a word or explanation she was whizzing over my grown-up grass. She did this not expecting a thank you; it was just what friends do for friends. The great thing is I had five of them.

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.
Friends I had the greatest. I say had; because I have lost a few 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. 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. 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 friends at the time lots to do. All five were more mothering/cleaning/thrifty people than I was. Seemed I tried to do everything at once, never getting one thing done. I have always been unorganized.
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 Denise 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 Denise 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 Denise 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 not been the worst thing to say at the time, but not much longer 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.