ministones

The things that will never make it in the baby books and other musings from a stay at home mom

Friday, August 11, 2006

34 going on 5

Back in the days when Paul and I were living together, but not yet engaged or married, I could never figure out how to refer to him when I was talking to people he didn't know. "Boyfriend" seemed too limited for someone I shared a sink and a closet with and "the man I live with," while technically accurate, just plain sounded dumb. I usually just talked about "Paul" as if his identity was a given and let people ask if they were unsure. These days, I do something similar with chichimama. I feel funny saying "best friend" as a grown woman, but the regular "friend" seems a hopelessly inadequate word to describe the person who knows me best, supports me the most and touches my life in so many fundamental ways every single day.

Saying goodbye to chichimama, even temporarily, is going to be the hardest part of moving for me. We've already tried to find ways to compensate for the miles that will be between us, but I know that we both sense the huge gaping hole which will be present in our lives once we're no longer around the corner from each other. I've been trying to use her annual August trip to Maine as a trial run for not leaning on her so much in my daily life, but so far I think we're both failing pretty miserably. She left Monday, and we've already spoken 5 times. First, she needed to find out which hand C should hold his tennis racket in. Then I found myself standing outside Old Navy with no idea how many pairs of size 3T hand-me-down jeans I had from her for Evan. Then M changed his travel plans slightly and she called to revise the dates she needed me to keep an eye on her cats. Then I needed to know which contact lens mail-order company had been lenient with the date of her last eye exam when she had recently reordered lenses. Then A's fever came back and she called for a consult. It is becoming overwhelmingly clear to me that I made a fundamental error in not calculating enormous long distance charges into our London budget.

I'm confident that I'll end up getting an A illness update at some point today, but she was on my mind, so I checked in on chichimama's blog first thing this morning to see how A was feeling. I was skimming quickly before my kids woke up, figuring I already knew most of what I was about to read anyway, when the second and third paragrpahs of the blog entry stopped me cold.

New best friend???? What the hell is she talking about? Is this supposed to be a subtle dig at me? I know that she's sad and anxoius about the fact that we're going, but she's also been incredibly supportive and she's not the type to be vindictive. But here it is in black and white. She's replaced me. Already! Where did she get a new best friend so fast? Oh my God, I'm going to lose my best friend over this move! We can't go!!!

I re-read her entry, looking for clues to my replacement.

Oh. "New best friend, the on-call nurse." Well, that makes more sense.

Carry on. Feel better, A. And chichimama, I'll talk to you later, my best friend...

10 Comments:

At 9:09 AM, Blogger Steph said...

Ooooh... I just thought of a new idea for you two to keep in touch and keep the costs down. I'll send you an email...

Oh, and I still refer to my "best friend" as such. :)

 
At 10:10 AM, Blogger Gina said...

I'm 41 and my "best friend" is just that, but it is kind of weird to refer to her that way. Like you I feel all of five years old when I say "My best friend, Millie."

You and C need to download Trillian (basic works just fine if you don't want to pay for the "Pro" version, though the Pro version isn't too terribly expensive). You can have your MSN, AIM, Yahoo and ICQ "buddy lists" on it - pretty nifty.

Hello is a cool one to share photos.

Can you tell I'm the IM queen? But, that's how I communicate with the people I work with every day.

 
At 1:58 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

You're so lucky to have such a good friend!

 
At 5:15 AM, Blogger Suburban Hippie said...

Oh my, I can't believe it's really happening! The NOT LIVING IN AMERICA thing, I mean. I would be going completely mental over it! Don't worry Rebecca, sisters are sisters no matter how close or how far. Ask Rosemary and Kristy if you don't believe me.

 
At 12:51 PM, Blogger Susan D. said...

I swear by Skype for staying in touch w/international friends. www.skype.com - it's completely free, and you can talk via computer (audio w/cheap headphone/mic combo, or both spring for webcams) by agreeing on a time to do so. There's also another option where you can do it by phone for like 3cents a minute, though I haven't tried that part of the service myself. Technology rocks.

 
At 10:43 PM, Blogger Jennifer said...

Your (hilarious!) IM conversation is exactly the conversation my "best friend" and I would have if we ever tried to IM. So, um, we don't. The phone bills are worth it. ;)

 
At 9:55 PM, Blogger chichimama said...

How did I miss this one? Ah, right. Bloglilnes is crapping out on me.

Anyway, you will be missed, yadda, yadda. There are no tears. No tears I tell you.

And no, there will be no best friend replacement. Well, unless you stay there for a second longer that the 22 months Paul guesstimated to M last week. Then M forbids me contact with you :-).

 
At 7:31 PM, Blogger jordan said...

help the dan and jordan fund by using skype! we used it in berlin and it was great. free = good.

i refer to my best friend as such. friendship is ageless. but i totally agree with the boyfriend thing. "boyfriend" is a term that you should graduate from along with your high school diploma or bachelor's degree.

 
At 8:25 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

And just what the hell am I supposed to do about golf and the weekly visits to the Trolley with you guys in London??

Has anyone considered MY feelings??? ;-)

Tell Paul to make that tee time at St. Andrews now. Meantime, we'll miss you guys.

 
At 5:07 PM, Blogger ByEmre said...

thank you Benten Oyunları - Komik Oyunlar - Araba Yarışı Oyunları

 

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