One reason for a blog is that I'm chicken shit. I don't have the guts to say things to some people's faces... or the wit to come back when the moment is right. I'm not writing in cyberspace so that I can be a faceless irresponsible spewer of hypocrisy. I just don't have that many friends and the few might scurry if I told the hard truth EVERY time. Aaaand because I try my best not to use my "Pepper Words" in public.
I was behaving like a normal neighbor and one of my favorite people came up to the porch. We were talking about the pain she was reeling from because her brother was losing his marriage. She was so angry at her young sister-in-law-soon-to-be-not. Broken hearted and near tears she described the descent. "She lied about who she was... covered it all up until after it was all too late". This was particularly devastating because another member of her very tight knit family had also just lost a marriage because the partner turned out to be a crazy person. That mistake didn't shine full strength until after the kids and a business venture and happy life and everything they'd built together wasn't enough for her. She lost it- just broke down and went nuts.
I was very sad for her, my friend on the porch. She has her own problems and quirks but also has the best, brightest, happiest, and most well adjusted family I know. It's not perfect and she doesn't try to pretend that it is. But nobody inside the door of their domicile is just plain bat shit crazy. They've seen it from a distance and kindly reserve judgement.
I was sad for her because the Kook came and Fooked with her life. I don't think anyone keeps it away completely; but many people are able to adjust adapt and just act like sane folk most of the time. Most people don't cover up who they know full well that they really are so they can work their way out of a ghetto of emotional dysfunction. They lie in wait like spiders amid a web of lies they've delicately woven over years. They wait for some unsuspecting prey to come along and get stuck in the web with them so that life won't be so lonely, frightening, and terrible. A Blonde Recluse may even believe that if she can catch just one normal person she can become something other than a spider herself. The intention was never malicious. She wasn't looking to ruin his life; maybe just watch him, learn to mimic his movements, maybe even share some meals and some friends with him. Once they made a connection he may have shown her some things about herself she never knew. Having never seen her own web from a distance, she wasn't aware she was an artist until her prey pointed out his own reason for approaching her in the first place. Hard to say. Spider romance can be a tricky thing.
That's what broken people do. We know we are broken, so we cover it up and go out and try to find normal people who make us whole. We play at life. Dressing up like the smiling people we see with paying jobs and happy lives and we try to be something other than dirty spiders who have always known they didn't belong around people who look so shiny and clean.
So of course I hurt for the un-sisters-in-law. They had both screwed up the only opportunity they may ever have to be a part of a family that loves one another. They had lost this wonderful woman sitting on my porch who has great kids and a loving husband, an acerbic wit and uproarious sense of humor.
I smile every time I see her name pop up on my phone. She is going to make my day- one way or another. She is so much fun to be around; encouraging, loving, decent, generous. I marvel at her constantly; her sense of style in home, beauty, and fashion. Her ability to dress her children and get them all on the bus with shoes tied, hair combed, and shirts on right side out.
I know she knows I'm a screwball and there are lots of others out here like me. We are having this conversation because we both live in the real world and know that everyone messes up and no marriage is perfect. What I can't bring myself to tell her is that I have no idea why I haven't ended up just like these women we are talking about. I cannot for the life of me imagine why I haven't spiraled out of control and screeched over the ledge.
I can't tell her that I'm just a spider too.
(BTW; fuck you in advance to those who will say, "if you can't 'say anything' to them then they aren't really your friends". People who truly accept you for who you are and let you be a moron on occasion are few and far between. Most of us only find a few of those in an entire lifetime. Many people don't even know who they are or WHAT they think until they run it by their friends for approval. And you don't say EVERYTHING to your friends or family either. Most of us will lie to someone we love who needs a truth slap about her hair. We turn the knives in their backs, don't we bitches? Don't tell me what a friend is or isn't; I get to decide that.)
