Not a Wasted Word

Another San Francisco treasure.

I never followed up on it, because it seemed like I should wait a while to put it out there, but I ended up distancing myself from that friendship I wrote about not long ago. Actually, my blog ended up doing the hard work for me.

Oh yeah, this is one of those posts.

One of those posts where I write about how my blog imploded a small part of my life, and I wondered yet again why I keep writing.

It turns out my friend, the one from the post, had been reading my blog. So she read that whole post about how our friendship was making me feel. You can guess how that went down.

But you’re probably asking yourself, Why did she know about your blog in the first place!? That’s a good question.

I actually told my friends about my blog. The first one, the one I started a long time ago, when I was really struggling with my failures to get pregnant, and then my ectopic pregnancy. I was desperate for those close to me to understand what I was going through, and to offer support. I was naive enough then to think if my friends read my blog they would get what I was going through and know how to help me.

That wasn’t exactly what happened. (Looking back on it, I can’t believe I hoped it would happen that way. What a fool I was. I have a lot of regret about sharing my blog with them.)

I won’t write out what actually happened because the truth is, I can’t really remember anymore, at least not accurately. I only remember flashes, small bright points of pain that I incorporated into my understanding of myself and other people. A constellation of hurt that shaped the way I have walked through the world for the rest of my life.

In the end I asked my friends to not read my blog anymore. One friend had already stopped, because she recognized that it was affecting our relationship negatively and she wanted to salvage what was left. I am forever grateful to that friend for honestly sharing her concerns, and then distancing herself from a part of me she didn’t have to engage with.

{I was able, after the hurt had faded, to take my friend’s concerns to heart, and her advice has actually shaped how I present myself here to this day. I ended up telling her that after this recent blog drama. I hope she appreciates that sometimes words reach a person, it just takes a while. I know I learned that myself at that time.}

My other friend hadn’t actually been reading my blog much, so I didn’t really worry that she would keep doing it. (Ha! Was I wrong!) And I was pretty sure my third friend never read it, and never has since then – the last thing she wants to be a part of is someone else’s drama. I didn’t really think about them reading it much after that.

Eventually I kind of forgot they had ever read it at all.

{But when I changed spaces and moved here, I did take down the forwarding address rather quickly, partly because I didn’t want any occasional visitors clicking here after a lengthy stay away. Was that because of them? At the time I didn’t think so, but now I wonder.}

Anyway, my friend must have been a frequent visitor, or she just happened to be at my old blog at the right time, because she made her way to this one. And I guess she kept reading. And I guess she didn’t stop.

{This is actually the thing I most want to ask her, if she was reading my blog all these years. I just can’t fathom her doing that and never telling me. And when our mutual friend tried to tell me that it was only her I’d asked to stop reading my blog, and wouldn’t believe me when I assured her I had asked them ALL not to read it, that was my defense: would a real friend who felt it was okay to read my blog NEVER mention it, or one thing I had written on it, for YEARS?! I don’t believe she would. I am certain she knew she wasn’t supposed to read it, and kept doing so anyway.}

And all that time, while she was reading my blog, and privy to my inner-most thoughts and feelings, she distanced herself from me, sharing less and less, and eventually not sharing anything at all.

The level of betrayal is staggering.

When I found out (through our mutual friend of course – she briefly got caught in the middle), I was furious. And hurt. So, so deeply hurt. Knowing she had been reading my blog, that she had been granting herself access to my life while denying me access to her own, while specifically withholding important information from me, but sharing it with our two mutual friends, hurt me in ways few things have hurt me. I was gutted.

It took me days to sit down and write her an email about it.

Her response was short and to the point. A classic sorry, not sorry about the whole not telling me things that she told our friends. She regretted that I no longer felt comfortable in the group, knowing I was not welcome in the closer, more intimate subgroup, but she said she understood. She also said that she hoped we could salvage something of our friendship in the future.

She never once mentioned reading my blog. She refused to even acknowledge to me that she’d done it.

I agonized over my response for days. In the end I went with the most non-committal reply: sure, maybe some day we can salvage something. I guess it was my feeble attempt to not burn bridges, except it felt like someone else had already taken a torch to any bridge that might have still existed between us.

And then it was over. My friends still have each other, and probably rarely realize that I’m no longer there. They already had their own thing without me, so I imagine it’s not that hard to keep having it.

I, on the other hand, lost that group. I still talk with my other friends–I try much harder now to stay in contact, mostly to make sure they realize how much I appreciate that they haven’t deserted me–and I’m super careful to NEVER bring up the woman I’m no longer speaking too, but it’s hard. We were a group, the four of us together. Always. It’s awkward pretending she never existed, that her absence isn’t a gaping hole in what’s left of my relationships with my other friends.

So yeah, that happened. And it’s made me re-examine a lot about my life, especially why I write here. My friend, the one who stopped reading my blog of her own accord, mentioned again that she doesn’t understand why people (specifically I) blog. And I recognize her confusion. Why put myself out there in ways that can come back and bite me in the ass? It’s a fair question, one I’ve been asking myself more since all this happened.

I’m still not really sure how I feel about the whole thing. I haven’t yet gotten to the point where I’ve gleaned the moral of the story. Perhaps there is no moral. Perhaps the whole thing is just a bump on the road of my life and my writing. Just another thing that happened to me, in conjunction with this space.

One good thing did come out of the whole ordeal: When I started this space I made the promise to myself that I would never write a post that I didn’t want someone in my real life to read. Or rather, I would never write a post that I would regret having written if someone I didn’t expect to read it laid eyes on it one day. When I do write about topics that involve other people, I try hard to make it about myself and not about them. I still stand by that post, and I don’t regret putting those thoughts and feelings out there. Writing that helped me understand how the situation made me feel, and the comments you all left clarified the direction I intended to take (and I would have, if my friend hadn’t read the post and veered my path sharply). In the end I don’t regret anything I wrote here, or how I present myself in this space, despite the consequences. And that is a significant thing. At least I have that.

I beat the drain monster! He has retreated, ceding victory TO ME!!!

At the start of Round 5, I took the u-pipe off yet again to empty all the standing water, reattached it and poured a ton of vinegar and baking soda into the pipes. Oh the fizzy goodness of everyone’s favorite chemical reaction! I let is sit for over an hour, then plunged some more.

Nothing happened.

So I took off the u-pipe for the millionth time and drained the solution. Then I stuck my diaper sprayer into the pipe and blasted it. The pipe filled with water, then spraying out the sides of the mouth, then drained out when I stopped the spray. I did this a few times, and the last one I held the sprayer on there a LONG time, blasting the water as hard as I could.

When I pulled the sprayer away that time, no water came out. It was finally draining!

I HAD DEFEATED THE DRAIN MONSTER!!!!

I danced a victory dance. And almost slipped and fell on my ass.

I reattached the u-pipe yet again, and poured boiling water down the sink (it was my final line of offense and I wasn’t going to waste the huge pot of boiling water), then turned on the faucet and watched it drain and drain.

I have no idea what could have caused such a major blockage, but I’m really glad it’s gone. I would have been so pissed to waste a day on that and then still have had to pay a plumber to fix it.

I’ve unclogged our sink before–taken apart the pipes and cleaned everything out with the diaper sprayer I still have attached to the toilet. It’s a PITA, but it’s better than spending a couple hundo on a plumber.

Our sink has been draining slowly for a while, but I didn’t do anything about it. Then I had the bright idea to plunge it and suddenly it wouldn’t drain at all.

So I took off the pipes and cleaned everything out. SO MUCH GROSS AND DISGUSTING.

Then I cursed a ton trying to reattach the u-pipe and turned on the water and watched it drain beautifully…until it stopped.

Evidently the clog was way back, in the pipes behind the wall.

So I took off the u-pipe again and stuck a hanger back there. But I couldn’t get it past the next turn in the pipe.

Next I bribed my tantruming 4yo to visit the hardware store with me, where I bought an auger and a special sink plunger, and where he got a “drain monster sword.”

I managed to get the auger a good five feet into the pipe, and it pulled out some gross stuff, but nothing that would explain such a tough clog. Still, I hoped for the best, reattached the u-pipe (with much cursing again) and turned on the water, which drained beautifully again, until it didn’t. Again.

Next I cursed myself for not buying some f*cking chemical drain cleaner at the f*cking hardware store, while checking to see if the internet had any wisdom to impart.

Many cups of vinegar and baking soda later, plus a few more plunges, and we’re at a standoff, and the clog is still winning.

We only have one bathroom and two sinks in our house, so this is really frustrating.

I’m taking a rest before going in for round five.