Carelessly Selfless.

The contents of today's post have been brewing for a couple of months, when the issue I'm going to tell you about first reared its ugly head.  The reason I haven't said anything until today is that the person at the centre of it all is a friend, a very new friend who I've grown close to in a short amount of time and I did not want to jeopardise that by publicly airing my opinion on someone else's choices...until I remembered what a pseudonym was. 

Michelle and I first bonded over our similar experiences, with particular emphasis on bad relationships, so it was only natural that most of our conversations steered in that direction.  We are two very different people; I'm a thinker, she's a doer.  While I'm busy pondering the pros and con's of a decision, see: procrastinating, she has decided, acted and moved on.  It's a very admirable quality, and one she utilises to her friends advantage more than her own.  A word was all it took for her to deliver a weeks worth of groceries to an elderly neighbour who had run short, or babysit at a moments notice for a friend who didn't want her kids finding out about her new boyfriend just yet.  She also took my son out a few times to give me a sorely needed break when even his own father didn't offer.  In short, she is a wonderful, selfless person.  But being so altruistic as to ignore your own needs can be dangerous.

A couple of months ago, Michelle broke up with her boyfriend.  This guy was a moody, manipulative piece of work who isolated her from her friends and damn near put her into bankruptcy.  Making the break with him was just about the only thing she ever did for herself, and I was happy to see her finally living the carefree life to which she was more than entitled.  Then the phone calls started.  Hour after hour of messages ranging from eerily cheery to hostile were beginning to take their toll, although she was careful to put on a brave face.  She began to indulge him by talking to him for over two hours a day, reasoning that she didn't want to alienate him until he paid back all of the money he owed her, but that was an all too convenient fib that I don't think even she truly believed.  She was letting him down gently, attending to his precious mental health while her own psyche was becoming more and more fragile by the day.  He even intimated moving back into the house, and no amount of pleading from her friends could convince her to do what any other red-blooded wronged woman would have: change her phone number, change the locks and drop him like a piece of hot fat.  In the end, the catalyst for change sprang from a most unusual source: her phone company.

A three thousand dollar phone bill would be an effective enough laxative for a person whose finances were in good shape, but for someone whose debt could register on the Richter scale, it was the last straw.  Michelle was on the phone that very afternoon, making arrangements for an international student to come and stay with her, and is working out a debt repayment arrangement as we speak.  Whether or not she gets any money back from her ex syphon/boyfriend now is immaterial; she has her life back, and is taking care of the person who needed her most.

My son, the love philosopher

I don't think there's a person in the world who hasn't suffered low self-esteem.  Even if your last name's Kardashian, I'd bet my limited edition Buffy box set you've encountered that little ol' devil somewhere along the line.  Fortunately, life usually finds a way to cushion your fall just as you make the proverbial twelve story leap.  My air mattress came in the form of my thirteen year old son, G.  I had just received an email from a friend of mine who was honeymooning in America and, while I was (and am) absolutely stoked for her, I'm ashamed to confess that the attached photos of the blissed-out couple posing in front of every damn Hollywood landmark Google Maps ever listed did bring me down somewhat.  We were both in our thirties, (I'm three years older, but there's no point dwelling on that), we both had children, and you could fill two equally huge volumes with stories of the mistakes we've both made, so why had it worked out so well for her and not for me?  Yes, I was coming down with a serious case of the 'Why-not-Me's.' 

One of the reasons I would make a terrible criminal is that I am so easy to read, which is why G was able to see straight through my 'I'm fine' routine within ten seconds of entering the room and sitting down next to me on the couch.  He glanced furtively at the pictures on my laptop, then put his arm around my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek.

'You're beautiful, Mum.'

I hugged him, grateful that I forgot to take that little white pill all those years ago, and regretting the verbal barrage I'd unleashed upon him earlier for failing to clean the crack den he called a room.  My son is the single most brutally honest person you are ever likely to meet.  He will give you his unbiased, uncensored opinion, like it or not, so I took the compliment as more than just obligatory pity.  I kissed his cheek and sent him off to bed, proud of my free range child raising philosophy.

'It's your age that's the problem!' 

If anyone has a windowless barn available for rent, let me know.