Saturday prevening I had a deep, caring, and thoughtful heart to heart talk with my first friend from 1st grade.  She knows me too well to not know that things had been off with me for months and she called me out.  BOOM! conversation changes from dieting and shopping to  “what is going on with you, let’s talk.”   She is also the kind of woman who you can’t really disobey, she tells it like it is, whatever it is, and so the dude abides.  We sort shit out, succinctly, by just being clear and honest.  She makes me seek her guidance with her directness.  She gave me advice that has worked for her and gave me pointers in how to change-up the thoughts that were not working for me.  She listened to every word I said without interruption and more importantly without judging me, and chose her responses with care, she wanted to say the right things and she also wanted to say what she felt I needed to hear and she did it with kindness above all.  Some of what she said was harsh to my ears, but I needed to hear the words and they are the truth.  I felt better after speaking to her than I had felt for months.

Yesterday I made a choice to do just about nothing…I napped in the sun, read a bit, did minimal housework, & I thought a lot about the changes that I have to make in my life for me through the talk I had with my friend, that all of this upset these months has been self-created and NOTHING that happened in the past can be changed, NOTHING anybody else does or thinks has anything to do with me, people change, people change their minds, people say words they can’t take back and people make questionable choices and circumstances change,  but NOTHING is for me to worry about…worrying about things that have nothing to do directly with me and also trying to change the thoughts that somebody else is having is like flogging a dead horse…I can keep wasting the energy but why???  …it’s futile…and that really hit the nail on the head…I had been worrying about so much for so long that is really so unimportant to my survival…I have to change some of MY bad behaviors, MY bad choices, MY bad decisions, and focus on what matters to me and me alone, a good kind of selfish…my house, my job, my loved ones, my yard, my physical and my mental health are all directly tied to how well and good I am, and I have been neither well nor good, and all of the above have suffered.

I sat in the gloriously bright, but not humid sunshine on my south deck yesterday afternoon with only the sounds of music pulsing through the outdoor speakers and crickets, and felt so peaceful, thinking about how I can change some things very quickly, and some others will take some patience & practice and behavior modification, thinking that a talk with a friend who has known you and loved you for so long is perhaps the best remedy for anybody when they are in a difficult place, and it’s free, be it mental or physical or spiritual or financial or familial or habitual or all of the above…that guidance from a friend is sometimes the best way to start a change because they knew you before, or during and will know you after.  Other than my parents and my Aunt, and my sister, she is the person I have loved the longest in my life.  She has been with me through some of my greatest joys and through some of my saddest lows.  She has seen me at my skinniest and hottest (late teens and adult successes with weight watchers over the last 20 years)  and has seen me at my fattest and worst (three hours after I’d given birth to the biggest baby in the hospital comes to mind) she has seen my brightest smiles and has seen my pools of tears, she has been my friend when I have had a big fat wallet and she has been my friend when I literally did not have two nickels to scrape together.  She has watched me make some really bad decisions and has cheered me on when I made some really smart choices.

Was it just coincidence, or was it perhaps one of those “cosmic clues” for which I have such fondness, that the hour we were speaking on Saturday was about the same hour, of the same day of August, that 28 years before she watched me make one of my very first of so many terrible choices, when she stood by my side in a fuchsia mini dress in my parents back yard, holding my purple flowers  as I got married?  …said words I knew were ridiculous, knowing full well, despite my youth and inexperience in life, that nothing was going to be as I wished or dreamed or wanted, and nothing good was going to happen from that day forward…She wants what is best for me and wants me to be my best, that’s love, no matter how you look at it…She has shown me love for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, and we will probably remain friends until death do us part.