Are you good in a crisis? I am – I sort of come into my own. I reckon lots of my friends would be able to give you examples of me mopping up tears, putting band aids on broken hearts and dispensing the occasional nugget of wisdom over the years. It’s just kind of what I do. I’ve got one or two friends who, I’m not going to lie, have sometimes made my heart sink when I’ve seen their number come up on my caller ID. Because I just knew that it was going to be another drama, which would be really similar to the last one, and which I’d have to live through with them in glorious Technicolor as they settled down to give me every last detail.
One friend in particular, who I’m not really in touch with any more was especially great at calling me somewhere north of midnight on at least two Saturdays each month, after a blazing row with her boyfriend. Between slurps of wine, she’d replay his latest transgression and agonise over what she should do, what it meant, what he might do next, what she should do next, why her…you know the story. I could have answered all those questions right off the bat as it happens – he’s a twat. Get rid of him. The End.
I didn’t, of course. I listened…because that’s what friends do, right? I was proud of the fact that my friends knew they could come to me when they needed support. It was like a badge of honour you know? Besides, I was sure they’d do the same for me…except I never tested the theory. Ah hang on a minute, there was one time when I forgot to put the number five guard back on the hair clippers after cleaning them, and shaved a stripe up the back of my little boy’s head one Sunday night when he was about ten.
Not an age where a wonky bald stripe is a cool thing to have let’s be honest. A very good friend of mine managed to rustle up an emergency hairdresser from her contacts list within thirty minutes and disaster was, if not averted certainly disguised very well…cut in I think she called it. I mean it still looked ridiculous but he didn’t have to wear the hat for quite as long as he would’ve had to otherwise. I never tested the theory more widely than that though. I’m more of a story-teller after the event, with some wry humour chucked in for good measure.
It was only years later, during a particularly enlightening therapy session with my hooky spooky magic lady that she gently steered me around to the realisation that by constantly acting as the rescuer, the fourth emergency service to my friends if you like, I was able to focus on everyone else’s issues and in the meantime mine remained unresolved. I was a classic case apparently. Who knew?
I need to be needed. It’s one of my things you know? It’s always felt like an anchor to keep me connected to the people who matter to me. But when the shit hits the fan in my life, I don’t reach out for help, ever. I just get on with it. I cope. Then I eat my feelings, get a bit fatter and continue looking out for everyone else. Essentially I deny my friends the opportunity to support me. And when you put it like that, how is that a balanced friendship? It’s not…it can’t be.
The people in my life who love me, would support me till the end of time, if I allowed them to. I’d have no need to medicate things which hurt me with food. I could be the one on the phone at 3am, hot tears and snot mingling with cabernet sauvignon as I hiccupped my way through the action replay of my own drama in glorious Technicolor whilst they lost the will to live, and dispensed words of wisdom.
Thing is, it’s one thing recognising that, and another thing doing it, right? Once an island, always an island…I might need to work on that a while longer 🙂
