A bit of a rant

WARNING:  Since this is is a bit of a rant I'm sure there will be some adult language.  And, honestly, I have been trying to let the situation marinade so that when I did write about it it would hopefully make some sort of sense and I wasn't just writing my thoughts without real thought behind it.  Still, I'm sure it will be a bit crazy.  So begins the story.

I'm going to try and lay the situation out as objectively as possible and then give my thoughts on it.  The day was a normal one.  The kids were in the tub and I was feeding Norah.  Then, Gaetan came into the room with his phone and said, "I'm gonna let you to talk to my wife."  When he handed me his phone the caller ID had a picture of his sister on it, so I thought it was weird that he would refer to me as 'his wife' to his sister.  I mean, I am, but normally he would just say Julie ya know?  Anyway, I get on the phone and there is this woman on the phone asking if I know where Zoe is staying.  Weird, she has Zoe's phone and doesn't know where she is?  So, I start asking questions like, "Is Zoe ok?"  "How is it that you have Zoe's phone?"  The woman, Caroline, told me that she was at the hospital and that Zoe was just fine, but the girl who had her phone wasn't.  She was trying to get a hold of somebody who knew her, (Olivia the girl in the hospital) and she had Zoe's phone.  Caroline just dialed the last called number which happened to be Gaetan.  At first she wasn't very forthcoming with information but eventually she told me that Olivia was in critical condition and needed help now.  So, here I am nursing Norah, Gaetan's phone up to my ear and I have my phone in my other hand trying to get the address to Zoe's Yoga Sanctuary that she is staying/working out.  I luckily had her address because I sent her some mail and I gave that to Caroline.  Unfortunately at the Yoga retreat there isn't cell reception (which wouldn't really matter because she didn't have her phone) but they did have wifi.  So, Caroline gave me the name of the hospital that she was at, her personal cell number and I told her that I would get a hold of Zoe ASAP.  I thought that Caroline was a nurse or something but turns out she was a social worker.  By the time I was off the phone Norah was done nursing so I handed her off to Gaetan and got on FB right away.  I know that sounds horrible but that has been the way we have been communicating this summer.  Lucky for us she was online so I talked with her directly and told her the situation.  She had no idea that Olivia was hurt and got in a car with another staff member and drove there immediately.

Later in the day Zoe texted and told me what happened.  Apparently Olivia was in a really bad car accident where she had severe head trauma, and needed surgery immediately.  Both of her lungs had collapsed, one of them were punctured, they had to remove her spleen, bleeding in her brain, she fractured her pelvis and broke her humerus and femur... apparently she ran into a telephone pole at really high speeds not wearing a seat belt.  Now, when I first read that the first thing that jumped into my mind was suicide.  I felt awful for thinking that because I don't know this person at all and I was jumping to conclusions... and then I felt awful because if that was true then she was a hurting person who obviously thought there wasn't any help for her.

I asked Zoe how she was doing with this because this is shocking news for us and we didn't even know Olivia... and I figured if she had Zoe's phone they had to have some sort of trust or friendship between them.  Her response... "I'm centered.  Sending anxiety her way isn't going to help so we are just sending love." The rest of the story goes that she wasn't trying to kill herself, which made me feel better about it and that she lost control over the car, overcorrected and spun out.  Apparently, Olivia and Zoe are 'really good' friends but she is moving limbs and is going to make it.  So, there is a happy ending to this story... she does have a long road to recovery but she will live.

Now, for my part of the rant.  First.  How is that we always get caught up in her crazy drama?  We are on the opposite side of the country and somehow we still get sucked into the consequences of her ridiculous decisions.  I'm glad that we could help and all that, but seriously... come on!

Next.  This situation bugged me for a couple of days.  One because I thought that this girl tried to off herself and that's upsetting in itself.  Next, the way Zoe responded.  If your 'really good friend' almost died and is critically injured in the hospital would you be so dismissive?  Would you just say, "I'm centered" and not even show any sort of concern for your friend? I just thought that it was extremely selfish, cold and showed such utter disregard for the other person's well being.  How she seemed to care so little for somebody else was disturbing and especially for somebody she claimed to be a good friend.  It also seemed like she was just putting out a front of trying to be cool in all the new found Yoga she's been doing.  Ya know?  It's like she doesn't know who she is so she puts out these personas that she's been around (in this case yoga) and then tries to do everything according to that instead of being real.  Because if she was real she wouldn't have fed me some bull shit yoga response.  I didn't expect her to freak out but I thought there would be more concern than that.  And the only reason  why I say that about her yoga stuff is because she called Gaetan a few days earlier and wanted to talk but not really. She just wanted to spout off as much yoga jargin as possible to make it sound like she knew something about something... when really, she wasn't make much sense at all.  She thinks that she's being really spiritual but she is missing the point.

Shes trying relate her Yoga spirituality to how we perceive God and His love and it's just insulting really.  Mainly because she doesn't want to hear our end of anything and how she is making her comparisons aren't the same at all... For instance during our conversation out of the blue she said that it was 'an act of god'... and I asked her what was?  the fact that her friend survived this horrific crash or that it happened in the first place?  She said, 'both.'  I don't know think that she gets it but she just wants to sound spiritual and knowing, when in reality she isn't either.  For me her response didn't make any sense... yes from our perspective God is omniscient and it is a miracle that her friend survived, but I don't think that's what she meant by it.

I mean, the whole thing is unexpected and unsettling because one minute you think you have everything under control and the next, it's spinning out and your life is changed forever.  I'm glad that Olivia is going to be OK and all I can do is say prayers for her and try not to let it bother me anymore.  I just don't understand how his family can be such a nuisance from so far away and the few instances that we are in contact with them they cause us so much inner turmoil.  I don't think they mean to but they actions are so selfish and with each interaction it becomes more clear that is the problem.  I guess that rant wasn't as full of crazy as I thought it would be.  I guess I've gotten over it.  The anger of somebody not caring for another human has turned into sympathy that she can't.  What has happened to humanity.

JVG