a sad situation

Cm was one of our best friends for many years. we met in NYC and hung out with her all the time. then we helped her move to LA and we visited her there, she visited here. we had the same wacky sense of humor and could appreciate each other's bizarre random ideas and thoughts.

now she's gone off with an abusive guy and it's like she's disappearing. it's like gollum eating smeagol (sorry, lotr-nonfans). funny-smart-sweet friend is replaced by raving, angry, delusional person who is digging herself deeper and deeper and deeper into this hole.

(moving to another state with this guy, far away from family and friends; quitting her job--really her whole career since she's an academic--and becoming financially dependent on him...rejecting her rich cousin's offer to bail them out financially because she felt her cousin was too condescending in making the offer, even though the financial problems are what keep her bound to this guy..........) going, going, gone.

finally, what i knew would happen eventually, she turned on me too--she leaves these messages on my machine about how i've let her down, i obviously don't care about her anymore, blah blah blah. she can't hear anything i say anymore--e.g., I offered to fly out and try to help out with something, and she got really angry and said I was being condescending and that i obviously think she can't take care of herself.

whatever i say gets twisted into something bad. this isn't like some of my other friends who got into abusive relationships and seemed to shrink down and just get sadder and sadder. it's like she gets more and more angry, but at the wrong people.

I still love and care about her, but it becomes clear that, to the extent that I placate her and try to act like everything's ok, I'm enabling her to continue to pretend to herself that everything's ok, as well as setting myself up to be on the receiving end of her ranting and raving at me. Not especially useful for either of us.

it's sad but as i have been going through this process i have come to feel peaceful in a way because i know that no one could be a better friend to anyone than i was to her. there's nothing more i could have done. so if it wasn't enough, then, nothing would have been enough.

maybe another person could have been "the right friend," maybe not, but anyway there's nothing more i personally could have done, from whatever my strengths and limitations are. so... a type of peace, even though I'm sad.

anyway, tomorrow (today, friday) is her birthday and i sent her an e-card, and then, worried she wouldn't figure out how to open it (she's pretty non/anti-technology), i sent her a quick email too.

i think my messages on them were weird, but i'm trying not to worry about it. no matter what i write it will be the wrong thing (or not, depending on her mood), so there's no point in obsessing over the idea that if I just said the "right" thing i could make it all better, because that won't happen. I just sent her birthday greetings because it would have seemed unnatural not to, i.e., I can't expect any particular result from this action, and that's ok. Mbly got upset when I said this, but I'm trying to use this situation to practice staying true to myself even when someone else is going nuts on me. Good practice for students and teachers and parents and bosses in the future. It doesn't make it any less about Cm. It just helps me draw a line between her sh*t and my life.

i listen to my lovey sleeping, breathing in the other room, while the tempurpedic infomercial chirps on with enthusiastic testimony. i may be losing someone important but i still have my lovey loopy. i'm still the luckiest girl in the world.