Motherload

I posted this week about female loneliness, and had a few comments which made me reread what I had written in quite a new light. What I had intended to talk about was the sadness of losing intimacy with one's friends, as one embarks on adventures like families or big jobs. And I was making the (feminist) point that for women this is a significant loss because their intimate relationships are such a major support, especially in their youth. But this can then be read as "I don't get enough from my husband". At this moment, my husband is snoring gently, and I am typing away like a mad egret. Go figure. However, in general, husband is a jolly good conversationalist, and banter is high quality (when it isn't about mending the shower hose). I suppose I WAS saying that part of the marital game seems to be a battening down of hatches, an avoidance of betrayal of the better half which I find laudable in many ways, but troubling in others. I wouldn't want to live in a w...

When I was younger, the phone was a constant companion and source of solace, a lot like eating fistfuls of Lovehearts or Refreshers. I could dial any time of day or night, and willing friends would be at the other end, ready to drop what they were doing to listen to my many woes, empathize, give advice (which I would promptly ignore), and enjoy or endure the high drama of my inner life. My phone bills were probably my biggest expense: I saw them as a painful necessity of life alone. Friendship was the highest state of being: to be connected with another who could understand me meant, literally, the world. I had a lot of friends — it's probably just as well, given what I'm describing. My friends came from distinct groups, parts and times of my life. Sometimes different sets of friends co-existed. I was different people in each of these groups. Sometimes the groups strung out like a pasta necklace over time, knots of friends at different junctures. Some of these groups have fade...