Knock on Wood or Be Jinxed…Another Friendship Blog

I believe in knocking on wood when you say anything good, so you don’t jinx yourself. Unfortunately for me, when I wrote my blog on “Unexpected Friendships” I forgot to do that. So yesterday, I had to deal with not one, but two friendship issues.

Eleven years ago, when my husband saw me forging yet another “best friend” relationship, he gave me some sage advice. He said, “are you sure you want to put all your eggs in one basket again?” I had to ponder that, but decided that yes I did want to take the risk this one last time. And last year, when this relationship ended, he never said I told you so or reminded me of his words, but I remembered them. And I took his advice, I have been increasing my eggs, but I forgot to put them in separate baskets. Yesterday, two fell out. Even though I had four dozen more eggs, I was very sad. I found myself waking up this morning at 5 am with tears streaming down my face, something that hadn’t happened in over a year.

So what happened, you may be wondering? Nothing earth shattering really. The first “egg” saw a benign statement, written on Facebook, by a mutual friend to all her friends and read a lot more into it. She wrongly concluded that it referred to something we had been discussing the previous day and asked me about it. I assured her, maybe to excess, that it had nothing to do with our conversation at all and that I hadn’t spoken to this mutual friend for weeks. However, I am afraid, in my attempt to allay her fears, I ended up confirming them. And, she curtly ended our conversation. What hurts is that she would rather believe that I betrayed a confidence and lied about it, then to believe she jumped to an erroneous conclusion. I hope she learns the truth on her own, because there is nothing more I can say about it at this point.

Then, late in the afternoon, I was exchanging a few emails with a small group we formed a long while ago. Suddenly, one member of the group is calling me out for always having something to say about her emails (criticizing/correcting or whatever). Again, I was blindsided, because I was giving my thoughts, observations or ideas and never meant to minimize hers or hurt her feelings. Apparently, this had been going on quite along time, months and months, and she never mentioned it until yesterday. Anyone who knows anything about me would know that it you tell me something I am doing bothers you, I am going to try my best not to do it. However, this animosity must have been building for a very long time, over each email, and I realize that she can’t like me very much at this point. I wish she had said something sooner, I would have taken her feelings to heart.

So, here I sit thinking what to do with my eggs now? Because I think, in my heart, I turned them into one big egg and yesterday it suffered a couple of cracks. I am not sure where to get baskets for my eggs and how to divide them up so that if something happens to one it doesn’t pierce my heart. I’m not a believer of “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” philosophy. I am more like the shepherd who has 100 sheep and goes looking for the one who is lost. He wants all his 100 sheep to be well and safe.

I guess I still have a lot to learn, even at my age. I can’t blame it on hormones, because I don’t have any.
So to the rest of you eggs, if you see me treading carefully the next few days, just know it has nothing to do with you. I just don’t want any more eggs falling out of my basket until I figure out what to do with them all.