I decided I needed some retail therapy today, but after all is said and done, I have few purchases yet a great need for SOME kind of therapy!!!
Because the car missed its inspection by about five months, I got that and its emissions test today. Hooray. Got gas and paid the insurance and monthly payment today (the latter is an absurd amount, but I digress), too. Debated about getting a wash, but after unloading upward of $700 on the car this month, I figured it was enough. Gotta leave some money for ramen and mac ‘n cheese!
To clear my mind (Don’t ask why. Just don’t — it’s far from bad, but it’s hard to see where anything good will come of where my mind wandered when it was unsupervised!), I went to Springfield Mall, which was a nightmare, although no less of a nightmare than when I’d gone to the Tar-zhay at Potomac Yard last weekend. At Chez Potomac, I’d found the last available parking spot in the lot (at the Waaaaaayyyyy back of it), had the blinker on and waited for the occupant to pull out. What happened but some crazy bitch swooped in and took the spot I’d claimed! Oh, I was furious. I parked it right behind her and waited for her ass to get out so I could kill her. But, alas, I waited at least five minutes and she was stupid enough to take the spot but not stupid enough to get out when I was in a frothy fit. Grrr. Kill. …
Anyway, Springfield. *sigh* Parking was an atrocity, but the wait in line at a clothing store damn near killed me. I know I shouldn’t be spending money on anything right now, but I’d promised myself to buy one outfit for work every month. I didn’t get an outfit, but I saw a shirt on a sale rack that was sort of cute. A little slutty for the office, but this is me we’re talking about — most of my clothes fall under the headings “whorish,” “sleazy,” “casual” or “denim.” In any event, I didn’t want to try on the shirt because I had to pee, so I jumped in line and hoped for the best.
Forty-fucking-five minutes later, I got waited on. Was I in the back of the line, you ask? NO!!! I was THIRD — behind two girls who were buying like $500 worth of shit EACH. And they had coupons and sensor tags and shit to deal with. There I stood with my $15 shirt (which rang up for $20, but I was jaundiced and really couldn’t care what the price was), as everyone in line BEHIND me put their shit back and stomped out.
In any event, that’s all I spent on myself. Hooray. But what I did do was renew my vehicle registration and get a personalized plate. w00t! It will say “I-BLOG,” after Pratt’s brilliant suggestion. So there went another $50 on the car today, but it was for me, because I have HATED my plate because the letters remind me of the name of one of the thousands of people in my life who are better left forgotten.
Related, as my beloved Samantha got her innards examined, I was reading the new Cosmopolitan, particularly the part where men say they really get annoyed by all the peripheral relationships to which women cling. I found that interesting — I pretty much can figure out what a straight male thinks, but I didn’t know that one. Per the article: “Women retain draining relationships … out of some twisted sense of obligation. … Bottom line, Life is too short to spend a Saturday night dining with the girl who occcupied the mat next to you in yoga three years ago.”
That struck me pretty hard. I tend to feel guilty when I don’t do my part to upkeep relationships with old colleagues and friends, but that little blurb made me breathe a huge sigh of relief. I attempted to send an e-card to an old friend this week for her birthday, but it bounced back because the address is no longer valid. And I felt awful for not knowing how to reach her after we’d been such good friends for such a long time. But maybe growing apart was the universe’s way of letting us end on a good note and, more importantly, make room for people who would have a bigger impact on our present and future. Wow. This was a BIG revelation for me!
Now, of course, good friendships take work and both parties need to be working equally hard at it. But some people treat the end of a friendship (or romantic entanglement, for that matter) as the end of the world. Which is the furthest thing from the truth. There are people I will miss to death — people whose names I will be screeching in the old-folks’ home, after a lifetime of wondering where they were. But there are the people who will be at my side long before that day comes and — if I’m lucky — when in fact that day does arrive. And, sure, I wish I did have more time to talk to those whom I wish to keep close, but like my beloved Shan says, true friends know that the other will always be a phone call away, no matter how busy they are (we do it, and we’re three time zones apart!). And when life gets crazy, a true friend understands that sometimes you’re going to be buried under an avalanche; these friends will be there waiting for you when you’re reaching for daylight again (after they’ve reached in to help you out of it, of course — none of this cowtowing to the assholes who left you to flounder and suddenly remember you when you’re doing better. But I digress). And if they’re lying in wait in hopes of ambushing you, then you need to call your magistrate ’cause they’re stalkers. 😉
People who were once true to you will leave you in peace, if peace is what you couldn’t find when they were around. The rest who poke at you with a stick are better left to seek others who might be able to love them in the way you just couldn’t anymore without jeopardizing your sanity. And, accordingly, we ourselves will find others who will love us more and who will find ways to keep from losing us to the ravages of time.
On iTunes: Faith Evans, “Kissing You”