Affordable Therapy

“You don’t call me often enough. It’s just twice a year.” My friend was frustrated.

“What makes you so upset? I am calling you now. By the way, others are getting what I can offer. Hearing my voice even once a year makes them happy.” I said.

“I am not like others.”

In my mind, I saw her touching her hair with her palm.

This never-ending argument about who is better and worse had to end.

We became friends in the third grade. I don’t know why she picked me. She had her friend circle. She knew everyone, she was popular. Her whole family was popular. Mine wasn’t. We were newcomers to the place we moved to.

We became classmates but she didn’t come to me right away. It took her almost a year. Was she observing me? 

She used to get everything. I didn’t understand why she wanted me to be her friend, probably, because she used to get everything she wanted.

Sometimes we played after school. I didn’t resist following her lead in the game. I loved playing with friends. Sometimes we fought. About nothing mostly. That was normal, in my opinion. Friends do argue. 

But at this time she got furious. 

“That’s it! If you don’t want to play this game…” she stressed the word “this”. The word “mine” would describe it better. “If you don’t play it, go home.”

“OK,” I said. And I went. Honestly, I didn’t worry at all. I even liked that I said “no” to her. Not everyone did.

“Come and get your toys from my place,” she commanded the next day. “I don’t need them.”

I was speechless. What did make her so mad? Our disagreement or my disobedience?

“If you don’t come today I will throw them out to the hall.”

I was furious. “First of all, it was you who insisted on leaving them at your place.” 

She turned around and joined the group of girls.

She watched me through the window coming to her place to get my stuff. While I was going upstairs she brought and left everything in the hallway, across the elevator. She stayed at the door to watch me collecting things from the floor. I felt humiliated. I was sad and mad. I hated myself for bringing and leaving my toys there. On the way home I promised myself not to talk to her anymore.

We still were classmates. We met every day, we stayed close to each other in line, and sometimes we were sitting in front of each other at someone’s birthday table. But we totally ignored each other. That was OK with me. And honestly, I didn’t care about the emotional condition of my friend.

When I was 11 years old I started attending a dancing studio. It was fun! We presented on the stage and we went to different cities to perform. My friendship circle grew huge. One day when I came to the studio for practice, she was there. I was surprised to see her. I didn't know about her being interested in dancing. 

Sometimes we went home together, sometimes we bumped into each other while interacting with other children. We started talking, not more than that. We were a part of a team. We treated each other with respect. No fight about anything! Follow the group rules!

In the last year of school, we became close again. I was a good student who got good marks. I helped her a lot and she used it. She paid me back not to force me to go her way. Once we fought again. She divided the desk we shared by drawing a line in the middle. I didn’t say a word but I didn’t cross the line either. I could tease her and laugh after all. I didn’t. 

“OK, OK. You are stubborn. I know. You win," she said in a couple of silent weeks. Like our friendship was a competition.

While we were graduates choosing where to go for secondary education she asked me to apply to the same program she chose. At least I made a good choice not to. She came a few times to visit after finishing school but the distance in kilometers was too long which made it inconvenient. 

She got married. I didn’t go to the wedding explaining that I had exams at school. I had a strong feeling of rejection.

And again, she got everything she was thinking about. Living in the big city, having her own condo. It was a hard time then. For all of us. The whole country was falling apart. My friend stopped coming to visit. I got settled about it and was happy not to have extra drama in my life.

Years passed. I moved to Moscow. I considered changing the university program. My future husband and I lived on the campus. He called us “poor students”. And we were. 

It was 6 am when someone knocked on the door. It was surprising to have a guest at this time, especially after letting all our friends go at 4 am.

I ignored the knock first. It returned back with a stronger impact on the door.

“Who is so brave there?” I yelled.

“It’s me.”

In disbelief, I got up and opened the door. My school friend was standing at the door, smiling.

“My mom is coming to Moscow and I need to meet her. I have an appointment in one of the clinics and my mom is coming to go there with me.” She shared the news while we were smoking in the hallway.

“Why are you here then? You should go to the train station to meet her.”

“The thing is, I don’t know which train station she arrives at. There are a few in Moscow and I must find out where to go.”

She knew only the approximate time of arrival and the place her mom was coming from. It was challenging to predict which railway station we had to head to.

We got dressed and we went. I spent 5 hours with her going from one station to another. We got on and off the subway trains, we talked and asked and finally, we got the answer. We went to the train station and I stayed until her mom arrived.

I helped them to go underground with the suitcases. We stopped on the platform between two subway trains. My classmate and her mom were going to their friends. I was going to the campus. Suddenly I realized that she never mentioned her friends. I wondered why her friends didn’t help her to look for her mom.

“Come and see me again,” I said. “You are here for a week.” 

“To do what exactly? To smoke more with you?”

I turned around saying nothing. I felt slapped without being touched, used, and disposed of with disgust.

And then social media appeared! I was in Canada when I got her invitation and greetings. She asked me for my Skype number. And I shared. I should’ve known better that it wasn’t a good decision to make. My ego pushed me. I wanted to see her reaction to what I achieved in my life. To hear what she got or lost. My personal geographical awareness confirmed the existence of the ocean between us. It was my safety plan.  

It turned out that her marriage fell apart, and her only child chose to live with her ex. All our conversations were about her problems and constant seeking for an answer whose fault it was.

It was hard for me to find our meetings interesting. We didn’t have any shared interests. It was boring to repeatedly talk about events from our childhood. We argued more often. Because we got older it was mostly about whose headache was worse. No, thank you very much! 

The ocean between us was getting wider and deeper. 

I stopped calling often. She never requested me to do it. She didn’t call me either. Not even texted me as all friends do. I came to the point of calling on her birthday and the New Year's. And then it came.

“Your last call was six months ago,” she said. “I checked. How come that you cannot find some time for me?”

“You don’t bother to ring me either,” I replied.

“I don’t want to interrupt anything you might have with your family.”

It sounded like the text messages were unavailable and couldn’t be sent before the phone call.

“It’s nice of you to think about my family but it’s hard to call my boys children, my baby is 18. I am flexible.”

She didn’t react. “You removed your account from Facebook. You don’t have Skype,” she continued.

“I don’t need Skype, I have WhatsApp and I don’t use social media.”

“But I do!!!” 

Why should I have cared? I hung up on her. 

Social media doesn’t cure rotten relationships. A deep ocean does. :)