The kind of conversations we have...

So I didn't go downtown to sing "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood." I didn't go to see Good Brother Earl, or the Violent Femmes.

And it's okay.

I've been having a crappy week, emotionally speaking. I'm dealing with the loss of a friend who I considered my best friend for the past seventeen years. That's half my life span. I'm dealing with the reality of a prince coming off a pedestal, someone I've admired from afar and up close for over a year.

The moments of my week were wonderful. But the emotional weather has been bleak. In the car, to and from work, I've been listening to the audio of How to Survive the Loss of a Love. I recommend it heartily. It's at moments very funny. The book is a colaboration of three writers, who read their respective parts of the book. They admit at the start of the audio that they are not professional readers. One of the writers is a poet, whose poems are extremely cheesy, like "The poem on this page is upside down, because my life has been turned upside down." But it's meant to be cheesy, so it works as comic relief. "There is no poem on this page. The poet has taken a nap." (Right after one of the other reader/writers gives a chapter on the importance of rest and naps.)

For the first time in almost 10 years, I won't be with my family for the Fourth of July. Which really sucks. My parents generally stay at a hotel downtown that has a pool, so we get to swim, and we go to a movie as a family. (Superman would be a shoe-in for this year's--in the past we've seen Eraser, Spiderman Two, among others.) One year, my sibs and I went to Sandcastle for the day. On the fourth (or in the Sophie Maslov days on the third) we'd walk from the hotel to the fireworks.

But I'm getting ahead of myself--this post is about my wonderful mom. And how excited she was that I'd have a chance to sing for the movie. And how, this evening, while sitting on the stairs in my garret, I told her I didn't go and she immediately said, "That's all right." I told her I need to protect myself--this is a hard weekend. She didn't know what agoraphobia was (fear of the marketplace) and said, "Oh, that's what so-and-so has. He doesn't want to go anywhere." I don't really have agoraphobia, but it's the easiest way to describe it: I didn't want to go out!

I finally told her about the last conversation I had with my friend, how she told me she didn't see any reason for us to be friends. "Oh honey," she said. Then we talked about friends and how right now my mom is feeling trapped, since she's not really the "girlfriend" type and there's a woman who seems to really want my mom as a "girlfriend." Fiercely independent, that's my mom. She doesn't go on "girlfriend getaways" or have a "girl's night out."

I just felt like my mom was meant to be *my* mom after we hung up. Neither of us were ever extremely popular, although I'm more of a social butterfly than she is. But she understands the pain of having lost friends over the years. And she understands how far I have come. And how bipolar can ravage my life, with swings of great and wretched times. She is realistic and encouraging. She gets me. She knows why I'm afraid. She knows I will get over my fears.

I told her I'm probably going to see The Devil wears Prada tomorrow. She said, "What is Prada?" I smiled, and said, "very expensive shoes."

25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed... (Proverbs 31:25-28a, NIV)