Frenemy

During quarantine's enforced pause, I've had time to ponder over the essential things in life, things like freedom and toilet paper and friends, and most especially about my closest friend and soulmate from birth. Her friendship has been both life-giving and destructive, often within the same hour. The visual on that is me laughing so hard I spring a leak followed by me huddled beneath a heavy blanket of despair.

She likes to do every single one of the same things I do, I know that seems impossible but it's true. As children, we sat on roofs fashioning stories out of wispy desert clouds, sipped from a shared straw, refused to wear shoes and had crushes on guys named Tom. We secretly believed we were animal whispers and swore to never watch a horror movie or eat raw oyster snot. I've spurted word vomit all over her through cold black nights of grief and loss and hemorrhaging emotions. She wept with me and reminded me that I was strong enough to come back from crippling pain and that happiness was a solid decision, not an elusive vapor. My kids and grandkids call her mom, she's as crazy about them as I am, and she inspires me to show my husband love and grace even on days the fuel gauge is flashing empty. 

Our bond thick as blood.
 

And then, she can be cruel. Like the times she takes the things she alone knows about my past and stabs me with them as though they were sharpened sticks. And the time she treated me to my favorite peanut-butter cup ice-cream and then called me a pig with no self-control after I licked the spoon clean. And last week when I was sicker than a dog and she barked, "Get your pathetic, lazy butt out of that bed and take care of your family!" Some days it's as though she's taking a magnifying glass to me pointing out every wrinkle and sag, gray hair and mismatched sock.

Spewing shame like a firehose.

She's by far the nicest person I know to everyone else; patient and caring and generous and forgiving. I believe she loves me but sometimes it feels like she hates me more.

And as much as I enjoy her company and all the goofy fun we've had, when she's like that I hate her back. My husband has pointed out that she's the only person on the planet that I allow to treat me with such abusive disrespect. He's right of course but I have this deep-down gut feeling that God wants me to be kind to her. So, I try to build myself up and reduce the damage she wreaks by listening to motivational speakers, burying her brutal faultfinding under cheerful clichés and clever memes and pom-poms and megaphones. I know you think I should, but I won't give up pursuing a healthy relationship with my friend. The truth is I can't live without her.

Because she's me.