Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Jason

I never really did a blogtrib to Jason. I should have. I have mentioned him many times before. He used to blog on 360 but he couldn't deal with it there. I should have listened to him last year when he bailed.
He is cool as hell. I met him at age 15 when one of my friend tried to set us up. AND HE SAID NO! lol. I didn't really know him, but damn he wounded my ego.
We met again when he came to see my brother and I was 18. We had moved to the city. I was like "He's not home" So Jase said "Well what you doing?" I invited him in and we were inseperable for a few months. We watched movies, on TV and in theaters. We talked football, we talked sports, we argued, we laughed. One time we fell asleep on the couch watching a movie. Oh yeah and we babysat some spoiled Icelandic kid once. Anyway, we were like soulmates. We did everything but go out. We almost kissed once...just once and i got scared.
THEN our significant others moved to the city and after that Jase and I only saw each other in passing.
We had kids.
and more kids.
We worked together for a summer. We joked about getting married in our 30's because though we knew each other's everything and were so comfortable around each other our timing sucked.
We seperated again. For years. We somehow kept in touch.
Then we got each other's emails.
We kept in touch that way. Then i got a blog on 360, we kept in touch that way. He was my first for real commenter when I wished him a Happy Birthday, even though at the time he was not on my friends list.
We still keep in touch.
He's my Jason.
I love him.
We talked on the phone for a couple of hours today.
so we never married, or had no big romance.
Our friendship lasted through so many relationships. ...so many kids (all on his side lol) so many jobs, blog, nights full of laughing. "We" lasted. He is one of my best friends...and you can't write a love story in my life better than that. (At least not until Derek Jeter retires.)

Finding Nate

Someday
I hope to see him again.
He was/is the epitomy of LIFE.
Fast lane or not, he loved life.
If you had the opportunity, to live life the way he did, would you cower?
Would you back away and say "No....I make way too much money for my age...let me go?"
I think not.
Nate lived life like any of us would have...ahould have.
Maybe better, because he always had a joke to tell an a good cheeseburger joint to eat at.
He didn't die. He is not dead. He just don't live life like some of us should anymore.
Instead of looking at him as living in the fast lane, maybe we should all find Nate.
Lord knows we need to.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Nate

I want to tell you about Nate.

My brother had a friend named Nate. Nate was smokin hot! I mean HOT! Like Johnny Depp HOT! Not only was he hot, he was rich...his tribe benefitting off their casino. Nate had new cars, nice clothes, pretty women...EVERYTHING. I met him awhile back at a party on a beach. At the time I wasn't single, but I couldn't take my eyes off him.

"I'm for real." he was telling us as he inhaled on a spliff " Maybe I have money, but I know how to rough it. I been there and done that...I ate powdered eggs." When he said that, everyone in the little group sharing the spliff laughed. I believed him. Nate's brother George, was not in the same tribe, but he was so dam happy all the time...his nickname was Curious.

Fast forward a couple of years. I had two sons and was single all of a sudden. I was sharing custody with the kids father but we lived in different states. One day we decided to make Indian tacos and have a party because it was someone's birthday or something...I don't remember. I was the only one out of my horny ass friends that had children. Nate came to the party and I was kinda-sorta seeing him, but not really...if you know what I mean. For the most part we were friends and sometimes more. Anyway, during the whole party and everything, while I was cooking...here's NAte in all his good looks and glory, laying on the floor playing Ninja Turtles with my sons for like 3 hours! Then they ran around the house until they got too tired and all ended up watching Nickelodeon. The song "Whatta man" came to my mind...lol.

Fast forward to the year 1999. Nate, my brother Trav, Jason, and a fool named Kyle drove me back all the way from Minnesota to the reservation. We came in two cars with my 3 boys and ended the journey at my Grandma Dod's house. i think they were trying to decide what to do for the night and I was just happy to be back on the rez. I found some beers, ok they were Malt in my grandma's fridge. I was like "What grandma doing with some Old english?" My auntie said..."Have them, if you want." I took the beers out to the boys and we cracked them open, enough for one for each of us, it was an early spring evening. We watched the boys run around in the yard

"This is badass." Nate said

"What?" Kyle asked him

"Just this." he said

I knew what he meant. Life....sometimes in the simplest form was badass. We wasn't doing anything, but we was living.

Nate took my brother and a bunch of other friends on a cross country tour, even catching New Orleans at Mardi Gras. The following summer Nate and his brother were involved in a head-on with a semi truck and George died instantly. Nate lived, but he is now paraplegic, needs a machine to breathe, and has no voice. When it first happened I used to dream of him gaining back control of his arms and stuff. I would wake up with the hope that someday he would be like he used to. I used to wonder if he had those dreams and if when he awoke ...it was unthinkable.

I know it is highly unlikely he will be back like that, but you know Nate lived. And he loved to live. He still lives with the help of machines, just not the same.

Some people should think about that when they complain about life. There is so much to be happy about, just look out your window.

The youth on the rez

The youth of my reservation are lost.
I am sure they are not the only lost youth.
But the youth here are lost.
I wished I had the money to make a documentary on the youth here.
I see them "acting ghetto or gangster" like it's cool.
I see them identifying with other cultures.
It's bad enough drugs and alcohol reign so supreme, already. But when Hollywood shows youth who are looking for an identity that it is tough to go around with a gun, shooting at people, or each other..it makes me sad that some of these kids had short lives and they don't know who they are, where they are from or what a great, strong people they belong to. They only identify with Hollywood.
Back when I wrote a blog about Wounded Knee, I did that for my children. I was writing all the time in a blogging community. I was literally attacked by a guy from Alabama. for "living in the past." Of course he not only attacked Indians on the reservations, he also attacked the Jewish saying they should forget the Holocaust, and Blacks telling them to forget slavery. I was very hurt, then I pulled my big girl panties up and went to word war with him. While some of the stuff I said was not very nice or does not need to be repeated because I can go off with my curse words at times...ok most of the time, but I was hit in the head with the realization that ignorance is still alive. While I was trying to explain to him that history should be honored, he was saying history is garbage. Then he had to be reminded that almost every holiday we have on our calendar is from a certain date in the history of someone, some people, somewhere.
I came to the conclusion that my children will always know about the past of our people. They will know of the massacres, the broken treaties, etc. At the same time, they will know what strong people we are. That we endured, survived, and moved on. They will know this not to "cry around" about the past. They will know this because it will show them as Lakota's they are capable of anything.

*The above post is my entry for this week's column...sorry for reapeating history from 360 lol, but I figured it was time for the readers of the column to know.

Friday, March 23, 2007

it's all about me

Yesterday I woke up and got the boys up to go to school after being up beading all night.
I only had 3 turtle dreamcatchers andd though we had hamburger in the fridge, I was not in the mood for hamburger. Sometimes, even though it is cheaper and easier to cook, I just hate it! UGH!
Anyway, I try hard to get my kids into other healtier foods that are also cheap, for real it is hard.
Anyway i went back to sleep next to my Emma Beans for another hour, plus she has been kind of sick lately. I woke up, made her breakfast and then I finsihed up the 3 dreamcatchers.
I am sick of this hustling. I mean I am glad I am capable of it and all. But I am sick of it. Sometimes I want to flush all my beads down the toilet, but as some of you 360-ers know they would clog it because of the big rats nest they are. I have grown to hate beading like some would a job. There is no daycare here unless you attend college. I am in limboo...but I can think of worse places to be...like I said at least I have a scheme and we will never starve. so here was my day.
the boys ogt off school at 2:40 and I loaded Ty up, he rode with me out to place where THE BITCH works. I should say that, she does buy my stuff at her rate and maybe she is just dramatic. I mean I don't really think that she slams everything around because I took her time off surfing the internet. And she only buys everyones stuff at a reduced rate...because well she can. So I said Thank you and glared and we left. "Wow," I told my son "I wonder how it is to be that unhappy, huh?" He smiled at me. We cashed the 36 dollar check bought groceries and cat food. Came home, I started cooking my chicken for enchiladas and beaded until it was time to cook it all at once. I beaded until bed time, in between watching Tv, hollering at my 2 youngest boys to quit killing each other and watched them all, as big as they are attempt to wrestle around the house. Like they are still tiny. They can't even try without knocking stuff over. Justice broke my favorite candle holder yesterday. It's a peach. She looked at me with hate in her eyes and slammed the lid down until it broke. The she looked at me with big eyes a half smile and RAN! It was only a dollar in a thrift store, but it was different and ...well I bought it because of a story a friend on 360 wrote about a woman and her peach pitt (baby) So my peach pitt broke my favorite candle holder. She is lucky I don't partake in child abuse. And I did not just type that. Anyway, my step dad used to swear I shook her. when he would hold her, because he loves babies...he would gasp and say "She has shaken baby syndrome." And that would make her all dramatic. Of course he did that with every one of my kids and brothers and sisters since I can remember...lol. He made them all drama kings and queens.
Anyway I am totally getting off subject. This is how I bead...this is what I do. I have been doing this since I was 18. Then something happened yesterday that pissed me off.
I woke up in the middle of the night and my ex was by my bed. My son had let him in, because that is his dad.
I was so pissed. He was drunk, crying over the past...what a horrible person he was. How he messed up our relationship, he should never have cheated on me...he still loves me, he misses me. I was always his best friend and he ruined it.
First off I jumped up and told him. I would have believed that line maybe 13 years ago. When I was young and dumb and took him back over and over , when he cheated over and over. I believed so much in my kids having a mom and dad, I let them see him treat me bad, holler at me, disrespect their mother. I believed so much in the dream of love, that I was unhappy and so were my kids. He destroyed that dream and there was no more chances. I spent most of 11 years being unhappy and I was not spending anymore. I walked him to the door and he left crying. I closed the door behind him and I cried. You know...I can't feel for him. I can't love him anymore...he killed all that inside of me. I can be his friend. but that is all. i cried because I lost 11 years chasing a stupid ass dream about love when he never loved me until I was gone. That was too late. Years ago I would have loved to see him grovel like that...now it makes me sad. Sad because we will never know what we could have been. I was a good woman to him and I don't hate him. I just wisheed he would be happy with who he is and find that inner peace, like I did.
I can complain about beading and eating hamburger, but really I am and have never been happier.

When I was a child....

I lived across the street from where I do now. I could look over and see the trees I helped my dad plant.....all big, tall and blowing in the wind.

I remember the first time we had to rake those leaves up....from the trees we planted. I think it might have been the first and last time I raked those leaves. I remember the smell out that day, I remember the sun shining on us but not in a hot way, in a way that made you feel happy to be alive.

i remember the inside of that house as if I was 4 years old again. Every part of it. I remember all my mother's plants which I almost killed off in a water overdose. They sat all over the house and hung everywhere. She watered them and talked to them. I used to wonder why she talked to them but they were all over, green and alive and I figured she talked to them to keep them alive. After all I would hate for her to not talk to me. I remember my mom sitting on our orangish couches beading all day and night. I would sneak and eat her beads.

I remember my dad catching me in my playhouse I had every bottle of my mom's shapoos, conditioners, oils, and lotions and I was mixing them with a spatula in a huge mixing bowl. I had no idea how long my dad was watching me. But he gave a sudden movement that caught the corner of my eye and I jumped. I ran out of the playhouse and luckily estimated which way he was coming. He chased me around and around that house saying he would spank me when he caught me. I ran at 6 in the morning in my raggedy ann nightgown around and around until I made a quick exit out of my room, only to find him waiting for me. He swept me up in his arms and I was so scared he would spank me I started kicking him. He did a big dramatic fall in the living room. With me landing on top of him. He looked at me with sad eyes and said "I'm dead." "Daddy no" I kept saying over and over...I lay on his chest and opened his eye lids peeking at his blank stare. i was so scared but somehow I knew to see if he was breathing. I put my cheek up to his nose and I felt the slight warmth coming from his nostrils. I KNEW he was faking and I knew he was ticklish. So I tickled him back to life.

I remember my Aunt Kathy babysitting me in that house and playing Barbies with me, she was my hero. I remember long summer days in the backyard with my little brother. I remember talling my little brother when we was in our bedroom, that the cord hanging down was really a vine and if he swung from it he would be Tarzan...he did, of course. The stereo it was connected to bashed him on the head, blood gushed out and I cried. He still has the scar and brings it up every now and again, like he really remembers it.

I remember sitting in my mom's green charger the day we left that house...with all of it's memories behind. The bedroom we grafitii-ed up because my dad was supposed to paint it. The two cats William and Sylvester and our dog Lucky, the trees we planted...I looked at them all through the rear window.

Today I only look out my living room window to see that house with a different family living there, enjoying the barricade of the trees I planted with my dad.

I have my own house now, in my hometown. A place for my children to always come home to and trees we need to plant.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Time Keeps on Slipping Into The Future

That's the beginning of a Steve Miller Band song.
It scares the hell out of me...well I mean not where I am all weird and shaking and crap but it scares me to think of time slipping into the future. And the way they sing it is so ominious sounding.

I turned 35 this year and have not sat down and thought about that until last night. I think here I am at age 35 not even close to where I thought I would be ten years ago.

I am a single mother of four kids.
I am unemployed.
I could lose a few pounds and have not even started my diet from LAST year's resolution.
I will be attending college for sure in the fall and NOT to be the teacher I always thought.
I seen my two oldest boys turn to teenagers this year. I have 5 more years of school with them, before they go off to be on their own.

All that scares the hell out of me.

A friend and I are researching into opening a store here in town. I have to write a business plan and the tribe will give us a loan. there is no store, Amazingly, here that sells beads or crafts.
Our meeting with the Lakota Fund Foundation is tomorrow, wish me luck.

Anyway, time keeps on slipping into the future...I guess...uh. lol

Friday, March 9, 2007

Alissa's Question

Alissa asked me ...well OK not me but she posed a question in her 360 blog.
"Do you feel society is pressuring you to forget your culture and become more American?"
I don't know if that is word for word, but that is the general idea. She wanted help with this question because she feels she can't answer this.
I am wondering if you can't answer this question Alissa because maybe you have many different backgrounds.
I am not sure, but I do know that as a melting pot many of us are a mix of so many things. My primary being Native American, which I HATE that term. As long as we were born here we are all native to here...everyone is a native somewhere. So I will say I was born and raised Lakota Sioux. There are so many terms, some of my people don't like the term Sioux because the French named us that...oh well. I am also part Filipino on my dad's side and French and somewhere I believe on my mom's dad's side there is a little Irish Cream in there to lighten the coffee that I am.
All these politically correct terms....I think maybe some of the pressure to make us forget our culture...such as when we go to fill out a form or something and they ask THE QUESTION. Please Check One:
Which Nationality are you?
White?
Native American or Alaskan Native or Hawaiian Native?
African American?
Pacific Islander?
Asian?
Or do you consider yourself Latino or Hispanic?
First of all screw that question...screw all the politically correctness...just leave a blank space and let us tell you the form makers how my great great grandfather came over from France and married a young Sioux lady. How they had a son and he married another Sioux lady and how she had 13 children and my grandmother being their youngest girl and how she met and married a boxer part Irish and part Indian from the city and turned out to be his biggest challenge yet...and maybe the only time he threw in the towel for a technical knockout. Then I will write of how they had a daughter and divorced soon after. This girl met a boy in high school who looked so different from the rest of the kids because he was half Filipino but he was fluent in the Lakota language. They married and had me. i never married but I had my boys from my high school sweetheart who was half black and half Indian. He grew up hating his dark skin and was called the N word on his own reservation. This is who I am, I won't check a box! Leave me a blank space.
i will not forget who I am. I am not a check mark...think about that the next time you go to check white, Alissa. Because you are so much more than that.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Hustle & Flow


*me beading-->
I like that movie, but this blog is about my hustle and my flow.

That title is me....is what I have been about since the day I gave birth to my son. I went for years just hustlin and working two jobs sometimes three. I made mistakes. Is tarted things too young...took on more responsibilty than I ever knew. I don't apologize for any of it. I got 4 beautiful children who love me and respect me. What more could you ask for.

I hustle everyday of my life. I don't get state assistance anymore to raise my children other than food and health. I don't get cash. I hustle up the next meal with my needle and beads. I pay the next bill the same way. I get paid minimal for my writing.
We are poor. We are happy. We deserve no pity no scorn. We mind our own business. We don't desire to be rich, only to live in peace.

Hustle here, hustle there, scheme here....this is why I need to blog...this is my flow. My hustle and my flow.
I take care.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

My Little Niche on Blogger

I don't blog to be judged...and really if people judge any of my actions via blog then thats fine. Sue me.
I went through some really personal crap when I was blogging on Yahoo 360, that only very few few stood up and defended my right to be proud of my heritage.
I mean the guy that attacked me said some really racist stuff about my people and other races...but most people agreed with him and coddled him.
I was hurt.
I let it get to me.
I did cry.
I learned that there are ignorant lil bitches in this world and I need not pay them any attention. Everyone should be proud of who they are , unless of course they are stupid, ignorant and assholes.
So I left Yahoo 360, I opened this blogspot, which is fine because it works for me for the readers of my column...they have easier access to blogspot than Yahoo 360. I made some wonderful friendships on 360, met many wonderful people.
I tried to move on from that idiotic drama and go back because I missed the "community feel" Then I was attacked again. This time a little more discreetly. So i closed my blog down again.
Nobody knows how it feels to be attacked, publicly in front of your peers about being proud of your heritage. Nobody knows how I felt.
To judge me for shutting down my blog there yet coming back because I missed the friends I made there is way beyond childish.
Some people can declare themselves blog gods and hand out judgements left and right and laugh about it...expect everyone to laugh about it, but no one knows how I felt when that happened.
I have one more Happy Birthday post to my brother to put on 360 for him tomorrow but after that I think my long, trashed relationship with 360 has really come to an end. This time I won't say bye. I won't even tell one person, I will simply slip out the door and start my writing somewhere where I feel comfortable...here on blog spot.
I got my ultimate goal of being on 360 and that was to be published someday. Thanks to everyone who gave me the confidence to mail my writing into the paper.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Chronicles OF A Girl Part I


WARNING: The following blog may contain one or more of the following....irrational thoughts , odd behavior, strange emotions, misplaced judgment, and the f word.


I recieved an email from an old friend yesterday. "Your weblog no longer interests me...sorry." At first I was mildly offended. Then I got what he was getting at. He no longer likes the fact that I don't get political anymore. I no longer post poetry. I no longer write in depth or of today's issues. I tend to lean towards challenges and towards cheese. I know some members of my family actually hate my blog. They say, "but in the real world." or "get a life." Where? Here in Po Fuggin Dunkervilleton? So I love my blog.....commit me! I write in here for me, not to please everyone else. I need this blog. Thank George Steinbrenner (and god) for my blog. Right now at this point in my life, this blog is a part of my life, if you try to make me ashamed for being a blog nerd it won't work. This is me and this is my blog, accept it or don't ever read it.

The words you are about to read are coming from a number 2 lead and on scratch paper. I woke this morning with an epiphany and started writing. As you all know I have problems with my computer I admit that. What I don't admit is that I am poor. Not poor as in "poor me" but poor as in poverty level. So What? Who cares? Not the government as they give aid to other countries they want to control. Not me, I don't care. I mean I hate it, it must be nice to have no worries. I accept it also....so I am poor. I don't blame it on this or that or the government. Fuck it! I had a stroke of bad luck, things went up and down, luck of the draw! What the fuck ever. I do what I can, I do my beadwork, I will go back to college when I move. Even if I am 90 years old I will, I do love to learn. I will never quit learning. I am not crying around or asking for shit. This is the way it is I am a single mother raising 4 intelligent children on my own. Don't feel sorry for me I am blessed.

So back to my epiphany (I adore that word btw) I wanted to write of girls I know, am related to, met at some point in my life, or girls I want to know. I will do this as a "regular feature" on my blog under the above title.

As a girl (woman, lady, female) we do deserve credit. We all do as humans, don't get me wrong I love my fellow mankind. In the Catholic Women's college I attended I learned what a feminist is/was. I used to be scared of that word for a long time, I thought it meant to burn bras and hate men. I would not burn any of my bras or hate all men(maybe some)...lol. After I learned, I truly have come to love and embrace the term feminism.

My brother always jokes (he's a chauvanististic bastard, excuse him) that a woman could never be President because she is too emotional and irrational and illogical. "A woman will just do shit to be vindictive without thinking about it."

So?

Wouldn't it better to discuss stuff over a cup of coffee and apple turnovers rather than throw bombs and missiles at some country to prove who is the toughest kid on the block? To find a way to "get back" at the enemy rather than kill innocent people not involved? I know...irrational. SO WHAT! Let me be irrational here for a minute.

It's not that I am against war (so, sue me!) I realize it is necessary (in defense) and sometimes it happens. Sometimes rights need to be defended, land, freedom, etc. Why go to war pretending you are defending all of the above but really you are just pleasing your conglomerates, corperations and big wigs that put stupid people in a trance to elect you. Why give every excuse in the book except that of what it really is *cough* oil *cough*

Why go to war but never show the number of civilians that died?...never show the pictures of children killed? The "collateral damage" whose names we will never know? We have said mission accomplished yet it goes on, we have said WMD's and never found them, we don't even know what the fuck we are doing anymore, the only certain thing anymore is death from all this.

Wait is this single mom getting too political on her blog?? Stop her! Whatever. Move over dumbass, give me the reins. I will provide more money for education, not look down at single moms as tax sucking freeloaders, give them a chance to feel pride in who they are. I will let everyone marry who they want. I will let women decide what to do with their bodies. I will tax all you mofo's accordingly, especially the filthy rich. I will mind my own business and let each country run their government the way they want. I will give EVERYONE a vacation. I will provide every person in America with one Krispy Kreme a day. (well spent tax dollars!)

Wow...ok before I get too political or irrational or did I do that already?.....If I offended anyone read one of my poems, rub a lil dirt on it, you'll be alright. "This is the one place I don't apologize."
This is what my blog is supposed to be about....girls. I seen an episode of Ellen on TV and she said something about walking in a parking lot one day and these two kids come flying by her. One of the kids said "Watch out for that lady!!"

She turned to look around and saw that they were talking about her. She was the lady.

"When did I become a lady? she said "I still feel like a girl!"

I know what she means....I am a girl. I will always be a girl. Yes I am a woman, lady, female, but before all that I was and am a girl.

When do you stop being a girl?

First period?

First love?

Lost virginity?

First heartbreak?

Marriage?

Divorce?

When? When? When?

I am a girl.....there are many of us with wonderful stories out there. Here is one of them

Chronicles of a Girl Part I
She was the youngest of 13 children and had a twin brother. Somehow lost in the sea of children she grew close to her brothers and sisters. Close to her nieces and nephews who were the same age as her. She married the love of her life at the age of 20 and bore him a daughter. Soon their passion caused a divorce and they moved their seperate ways. Both remarried but continued their stormy romance, causing friction in both families. She went on to have 7 more children and her oldest daughter made her a grandmother before she was 40. When she was 42 her twin died, making her feel incomplete and alone. She knew not how to deal with loss.

Her middle daughter died in a car accident at the age of 15. On her way to a dance she gave her money for after she let her daughter win the argument of even going. She knew not again how to deal with that loss. She put all pictures of her away, because she couldn't look at them. She never visited her grave.

Her mother died a year later.....she once again closed up all the feeling inside her.

Her husband died sometime later. She knew she no longer loved him but she didn't know when she quit loving him. The guilt made her give her veterans death benefits away. She split it amongst the 7 kids, even the one that wasn't his.

She battled lung cancer in her 60's. She saw her mother in the hospital hallway calling her to come home. She saw the angels at her hospital window. She wasn't done, she came back.

She is 72 today. Working full time raising 4 more grandchildren whose mothers left them with her. She is mistaken for being mean, bitter, crabby....sometimes she is. Most of the time, I think it is because that is the only way she deals with this life. She puts it all away and thats all that is left is the bitter and the emptiness. She is just a girl.

Disclaimer-All the girls in these chronicles are unnamed. I love my grandmother.

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Vampires



Vampires
Have you ever met a vampire?

I joke all the time that on my old page many "self proclaimed vampires" sent me invites...and that was TRUE! Especially in the beginning...then they figured that I have a very short neck and my blood is very common, plus I sent them to my dear Sarita in Germany.

But real life vampires...have you ever met? An old boss of mine had a term she called "psychological vampire." She used it to desribe my brother's girlfriend at the time...and I seen what she meant. She was gorgeous, so that was how she drew my brother, and unfortunately one of his best friends in. Once she had them , she drove them crazy. She was able to get them to do whatever she wanted. She had a great personality, on the outside but once you got to know her you seen past the pretty face for what she really was. She drained them of almost all they were and of their friendship together. Fortunately, they both realized what she was before the friendship was ruined beyond repair.

I had a friend that was so. She was my best friend in all the world and I loved her. We did everything together including getting in a car wreck. Not that that was fun, but it was something traumatic we went through that we survived together. We ended each phone call with I love you and our kids were awesome together. They called each of us "Auntie." We had the same taste in EVERYTHING and I forgave her for not liking sports and she forgave me for not liking rodeos.

But she was a vampire, an energy vampire. She drained me...physically, emotionally, and spiritually. She forever played the victim for every relationship she was in. She forever wanted me to save her, she forever had this attitude...."poor me, everyone hates me, life is so hard, I am sick, I will probably die soon..." On and on and on....sometimes I hated her just as much as I loved her.

If she wasn't draining me of every bit of life I have, she was blowing smoke up her own butt. This guy and that guy are so in love with me...This girl and that girl are so jealous of me...I am the best worker at Target...I am the kids' favorite worker at the school...blah blah blah.

It got to the point where I would hate her with all of my energy and then hate myself for feeling that way about my best friend.

Then one day, I realized this friendship was unhealthy. I realized that I let her control my feelings too much. I realized that being a good friend did not mean to let her control me and drain me that way. I stepped back after she threw a jealous fit and rampaged over talking to her boyfriend about football, while the Superbowl was on. She threw an aerosol can at me and knocked a hole in my wall. I threatened to call the cops and they left. I have not talked to her since that day. She tries, I heard she cries for me and my kids when she had too much to drink, which seems to be more and more lately. She called me last week at about 4am. I answered the phone and she was drunk.

When I heard her voice I immediately thought something was wrong and my compassion mode kicked in... then when she asked what I was doing and I told her sleeping, she started on a rampage "FU, who the F do you think you are??? You are not better than me!" That was all I heard when I hung up. She didn't change, but I did.

What I fear is my lovely neices will take after her. If I was a bitch, I could gloat in her misery, as she is what she never wanted to be...single. I could gloat, but all I feel is pity for the girl. I don't even know who she is. I never did.

Just like in intimate relationships, sometimes you need to know when to end it, the same as friendships. No matter how much it hurts.