Today was my kid's second day off from school due to illness. As of right now, I am not sure if she's going to the kindergarten tomorrow either, even for the special parents-and-grandparents observation day which I have been somewhat afraid of, mostly because I'm not fluent and don't always know what's going on and my husband/translator will be working at the time.
Many good things happened today. We talked for a bit to a couple of my longest-lasting friends (and their adorable offspring) before I got lunch together for everyone, gave the kid her medicine, and went shopping for dinner stuff. I also scoured all nearby potential sources for eco-safe water-based textile ink, as I REALLLLLLLY want to print stuff from Japanese grating, in the style of the pirate printer of Europe. So damn cool! But alas, no ink. Instead, I ran into a former student from back when I worked in Sendai. This one took exactly one trial lesson post-baby from me and told me she had some other family medical trouble that she needed to spend her time on at the time. She stopped me to ask if my family was okay in Kentucky. So far as I know, I don't have any family whatsoever in Kentucky. "Actually, it's Texas, but yeah, they're all fine. We're far from the water," I said. She said she had to run as she was on her way to her English class now. We parted ways.
And part of my wonders if I could have done something to make her choose me as her English teacher, but the rest of me is so damned tired that it cannot fathom why that would matter. I haven't been able to keep any pre-baby students because my mind post-baby is not as dedicated to the art of teaching. I still care a lot, but not to the same extent. She would have inevitably been disappointed by this. Good that she didn't lead me on.
I took over a Pokemon Go gym, which got retaken, so I retook it again and put an even-higher-level creature in it. I also managed to smash 5 guys out of another gym and plant one of mine in their place with seconds left before a legendary raid began at that location. That was pretty exciting for me.
I came home to a husband playing video games and a daughter napping on the couch, so I put away the groceries and started again into Fallout New Vegas, which I have been playing for too long and am really ready to get to the end of. I'm in the Dead Money expansion, almost at the end. I die a lot. Oh well.
Then, after about a week's worth of thought, I un-followed a friend on Facebook. It was the least harmful (also least interactive) of potential options. Part of me had wanted to talk to her about a recent share-- a declaration of mental health awareness. It was basically a memo stating the half a dozen reasonable reasons she would cancel plans with people she otherwise enjoys the company of. This isn't a bad thing to let people know-- I'm over-peopled, exhausted, whatever today. Sorry I can't meetup.
Here's the thing though. We've known each other for almost 20 years. I can probably count the number of times we have seen each other since starting college on one hand. That was more than a decade ago. The last time I saw her was at my wedding, where we didn't have time to speak. I've been stateside since then, and even bought tickets to a play she had interest in (I had a group of friends going) when she went suddenly incommunicado. Never had an explanation for that. I don't know if there was an apology because after not getting to see her or talk to her at all the one week I was in Texas for likely a decade, I was too disappointed to notice. I do know that she never paid me back for the non-refundable ticket to the play (that she didn't ask me to buy, but fell off the face of the Earth instead of telling me she couldn't go, so it's a small thing and on me, but still shitty...)
Most of our communication in the last 6 years has been her occasionally posting "Let's Skype soon!" as a comment and then never getting online or arranging anything. I can keep asking, inquiring, giving times and options, but it's just me talking to myself. She will just ignore me until I go away.
At one point (pre-2011) she actually gave her cell phone (that I had arranged to call her on at a certain time) to a random friend who apparently had no phone at some point when they had to be apart or some crap. It doesn't matter if their weird story was accurate or utter shit. No apologies. No re-working of times. Nothing but "Oh, I'm girl-you-met-once, not the person you were intending on speaking to, and she isn't anywhere near me..."
And it's just such crap.
The bottom line here is that there are limits to my patience with long-distance, low-interaction relationships. I accept that anxiety problems may get in the way of maintaining contact. That buys you six months of 0 contact, no questions asked. After that, assuming you're not in a mental hospital, I expect a few words of "Hey, sorry talking sucks for me, but I give a shit!" or it isn't really a friendship. I also get that there is some issue with her manipulative roommate, which is part of something completely different and beyond my need to explain to the internet. As an adult above 30, that gets you a few missed chats and forgotten responses, but not 6 years worth of goddamn silence. That's not a friendship.
If it's been 6 years and we have had fewer than 3 conversations outside of "Let's chat!" "When?" "..........." it isn't a friendship anymore.
I hate that this kind of thing is painful and I hate that I am whining about it on my blog. Makes me feel like I'm back on livejournal, being a whiny film-major.
But I think college is part of it. I think she is likely re-initiating her narrative, telling her life story from a happier beginning, which I can't blame her for. I know enough of what went on under the roof of her childhood home to know that shutting that door may well be necessary for sustained happiness or even just non-despair.
The shitty thing is that her narrative seems to now begin after she moved away to college. After we stopped being close. It erases one of the most important early friendships of my life.
And that fucking sucks.
But I guess that's life.
Hell, I'm lucky to have the friends I do, because the ones who do think I am worth more than 12 seconds of their time every couple of years? They are amazing.
If you read this, you're probably one of them.
So thank you for being you.
The other major thing on my mind these days is a few frustrations with an employer that doesn't seem to share my concept of professional behavior. If things don't work out, that's that. We won't starve for it, but I also can't bend over backward to please people who seem to think that I am a simple, uneducated and unskilled house-woman with all the free time and nothing to do but wait for them to summon me on an hour-long journey each way in the hopes that perhaps this time they will elect to be present for the agreed-upon meeting time. This summons also came with no apologies or mentions of our previous (missed) meeting time, for which I scheduled and emailed and prepared and arrived to find no managers present.
I don't think it's professional to whine about this shit on a blog either, or to swear so much when you do, but fuck it man. I worked for GEOS, which gave us a bullshit video-chat-meeting where the woman talking to us couldn't remember what camera we were on and wound up showing us her butt for 20 minutes. This was a day before the meeting where they told us that we didn't have jobs anymore and our last paychecks were toast, eaten by the great corporate machine.
When people can't be bothered to treat me with respect, I start looking for the door. I've been through too many eikaiwa gigs to do otherwise.
Also, as of last month I've been teaching for 10 years. That's right. A decade ago I walked into several classrooms at Southwest High School as Ms. Fleming, the SAT prep teacher, 6 periods a day. I worked my ass off, and every once in a while, I miss those kids. I am happy that I came to Japan and have had the ensuing adventures, but there was something particularly bad ass about teaching kids at my high school. So weird, but pretty damn cool.
Glad I don't have to wear suits anymore though.
