I need some good old-fashioned catharsis.

Roughly two weeks ago a friend of mine called me up out of the blue to tell me I had been very critical of her. I apologized and told her I had never meant to be critical. She started telling me how critical I'd been. I apologized. She told me I was critical, and so it went for about an hour. In the middle of this back and forth she let fly a comment that told me she has considered me to be very critical of her for some time. Which frankly, has me very confused and very concerned on many levels.

The eleven year old I take care of in the afternoons heard a lot of this discussion when it first took place two weeks ago over the phone and was with me this afternoon when I was still upset over a nasty email exchange. Bless her little heart she was trying so damn hard to make me feel better. We sat at the table having a snack and a long conversation about the problem: "Are you the kind of friends who tell each other everything? (Yes) Then why didn't she just tell you at the time?" I don't know sweetie--grown ups are stupid sometimes. "I heard you apologize like 10 times on the phone--didn't you make up yet?" Nope. "She could have called you, said you were mean and when you said, 'sorry, I didn't mean it' she could have just hung up and gotten over it. Geez" Yeah, I don't know either, kiddo. We went to Joyce Leslie to buy some tacky/trendy summer clothes to try to make ourselves feel better. I taught the child the phrase "retail therapy". Don't ever say I don't give back to the youth of America.

Who knows--maybe I'm just a colossal, hyper-critical bitch. Then again, the complaint is coming from the friend who asked me to not wear black to her baby shower, "Please don't be all New York". I thought she was making a joke.

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