Tag Archives: friendship

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A portrait of Boa Black

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: pet.

This is Miss Boa Black. I am not sure if she is my pet or I am hers.

My daughter picked a kitten from the pound 15 years ago. A few days later I took my son there and handed him Boa. She was tiny, feather soft, and purred the instant we picked her up. The other cat is gone, but Boa is still here. She is really a one person cat and the person is me. She hates it when I pull suitcases out and lately she has been tucking me in at night. She does love the kids but disapproved strongly when they went off to college and only visit erratically.

She still has the softest fur.

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letters

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: letter.

I write a very careful letter to an old friend after my sister dies.

Not right after. 6 years after. Another friend tells me after my sister dies that OF says she will never ever talk to me about my sister. OF doesn’t. I don’t see her much.

I do not ask about it directly for six years.

Suddenly I am sick of it. For one thing, a family member of OF’s dies. OF asks me on the phone to come visit “And we’ll cuddle and talk about my family member.” I thought, how can you ask me to fly and visit and talk about your family member when you have not talked to me about my sister for six years? It brought all the pain back to the surface.

I write a very careful letter thanking OF for all the positive things she has done for me. She has known me since birth. She is a mentor for me as a professional woman. In other areas, no. I also write as a query, is it true that she will never talk to me about my sister?

She does not answer the query. And then tells me that she carries the letter around because it makes her so happy.

I think of the letter as a thank you and goodbye. If you will not speak of my sister to me, it hurts and it has hurt for six years. And I am done. I have been patient to the point of being completely ridiculous.

And I finally approach it directly on the phone, because I hate that branch of the friends and family gossip and triangulation. “Is it true that you will never speak to me about my sister? You haven’t for six years.”

Silence. Then: “I am willing to talk to you about your sister, mother and father, but only the good memories.”

And I say, “No.” I say, “Why don’t you ask me what sort of relationship I want?”

It is hard to leave family systems, even when they are dysfunctional and cruel. There is still love there even if it displayed by triangulation, gossip and mean rumors. It’s a love that is emotionally underdeveloped. We spend a long time trying to change, facing that the love is not loving, deciding that it is worth changing ourselves and leaving. I still love OF but I do not want to be in a relationship where she controls me and silences me. It hurts too much. I am still glad that I sent a letter with all the thanks, which I meant from my heart. And I am glad to say goodbye.

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closed doors

For Norm2.0’s Thursday doors. However, I missed it last week, so the linking is already closed. He looked back at the doors through the year. I did not have time last week and I would rather wait this week. Doors can open and close and we are not quite at the end of the year.

Blessings on everyone.

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brown water

For Wordless Wednesday. (But sort of wordy!)

We hiked part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal yesterday. It has rained tons in the last week, so the Potomac River is really really high and fast. The Billy Goat Trail is blocked off by the park service, partly flooded and not safe. My daughter pointed out how different the color of the fast river is than our Salish Sound.

It was a gorgeous day, sun, not very warm, birds, tow path and wild rushing river.

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childlike

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: persist.

Oh, children are the most brilliant of all at persisting! Think of learning to walk, learning to talk, being small in this adult world and trying to keep up! Think of figuring it out when at first you have to realize that you have hands and that the noises mean something! And they persist!