As If

All I could think of when my friend was talking to me in the hosptial was that "it was as though I was not there, like I happened to be an incidental party in her conversation about herself.  It reminds me of when I was younger and did not know better.  I would rattle on and on about myself not even taking notice that I had not allowed the other person to share a word about themself.  I have been  running into that a lot lately and I recall living in it for a long long time.  I was this person in this person's life who happened to be there every morning and every night.  Try as I might to get my point across there was simply no way that was going to happen.  After a time I realized that there was not any point in sharing and would keep things to myself.  After all I was not going to be heard and it was not going to make a fucking bit of difference.  I as spinning my wheels with people who never learned how to listen and respond accordingly.

So admittedly tonight there were a couple of friends who called and I did not answer the phone because I knew what awaited me.  I would be listening to someone tell me his or her story for an hour or maybe longer and then that would be that.  I would be asked in passing how I was feeling since they both know about my health opportunity and then off to the races.  This is the same casual coversation about  this or that, nothing that seems to motivate me to cry or laugh.  I feel awful saying it but I lived like that for a long time and it was fucking boring.  In fact it was painful and hurtful at times.  That being said it is over with now and I get to pick who I want to keep in my life.  Not the ones that call me to spill out their guts but the ones who are there to hear my heart's desires as well.  Belieive me when I tell you those folks are far and in between.  I have literally felt like I was having a contest with one person the other day so that I could respond to her questions alone never mind anything further.

There are people in my life who listen with their hearts and those are the ones I call now.  I don't call the ones that are going to uh huh me to death or talk my ear off.  I have set some boundaries in my life.  I think part of the reason is that I know I have so little life left or could have so little life left.  I cannot waste it.  I just don't have that luxury.

My mom called me tonight and lately I love hearing from her.  Tonight was not one of those nights because as she has done before she talks to me while she watches the TV on a volume that is disruptive to the dialog.  I cannot hear her and it's fucking irritating.  I share with her once that I cannot hear her due to the TV and then when nothing esle works I either hang up or I end the conversation.  I just feel like she could honor us best by turning the TV off and dedicating that time to  me.

We don't turn our T V off and we don't turn our computers off.  We want to "multitask" I think we call that now.  I call it rude and it does not honor me or you.  My new boundaries are about who I want to be in my life, what I want in my life and why.  I set these new boundaries and started out by deleting phone numbers and emails.  I started with this one crazy lady as I call her who ranted so much about herself I forced myself never to see her again in person.  Unfortunately I bumped into her one time but thank goddess for that sole incident.  In her life everyone is an incidental and happen to be there including and not excluding her fucking dog who she drags around everywhere even though he is unruly.  Enough is enough you know what I mean?  OMG, LMAO and BEF, all that shit.

So today marks another day when I got to select what to do who to do it with and where to be at what time.  I love that about my life in spite of my physical limits.  It feels freeing to be who you are and to tolerate only what you want.  It feels even better to be as if you are always there and mean something, because the truth is everything we do means something.