Necessary Mutilation

Yecch — I had an upsetting telephone call with a good friend from Rochester, who clearly would have fared better waiting until another day to return a message I left her some time ago.

I had been somewhat anxious about sharing the news of my surgery with her all along, and had decided to wait until it was “soup” before doing so — not realizing that if I waited any longer she’d be off to her long planned trip to England and I’d be post-operative.

So … I unfortunately left her a rather cryptic yet “urgent” message to call me -which she chose to do with clearly a lot on her plate and apparently raging PMS.  She prefaced our talk with “I can only talk a few minutes” and that she had a lot to do and was in some sort of hormonal snit.  Not exactly the warm, inviting, opening I had hoped to share such important information .  My mind raced as to whether to “bother” her at all - and decided there was no backing out now, especially after the way I’d worded myself on her answering machine days earlier.  Oh crap, what to do!

When it became apparent that I had few choices and fewer minutes, I gave the most abbreviated version of my decision, plans and dates - which was met with some “uh huhs”; “okays” and mostly nothing much at all.  In all fairness, this is not typical of this good and loyal friend of many years — although occasionally strong beliefs prior to this have cause us to “agree to disagree”.

We agreed further that talk best be saved to another day (hallelujah!) and I harbored no ill feelings - although I must admit this was the most awkward and off putting of all my conversations with anyone about my decision.

Just as with Janet, I know that we’ll revisit this talk if, and as necessary and friendship will prevail, regardless.  Life’s too short and we’re all too old now for anything less.