Friday 28 October 2016

Just a girl I used to know - part 4 (lke a yo-yo)

There have been a few people who have been in and out of my life several times. They would become part of my circle of close friends - then something would happen and we would drift apart - but then months or even years later we would get back into contact and the whole cycle would start again.

Caroline was the vicar at a church I used to visit (fairly irregularly). When I first joined her congregation she made me feel welcome, partly because I was by far the youngest adult member of her "flock" and partly because, just as I was,  she was married with a pre-school child. Gradually though I noticed a certain "chill" developing between us - I was slowly but certainly marginalised in those aspects of church life that I most enjoyed. I tried hard to stay friendly and co-operative but it wasn't to be. I came to dread seeing her and so I stopped going to "her" church and all contact between us stopped. Then quite suddenly there was a community project and she and I attended the first meeting. She made a point of sitting next to me and she chattered away as if there had never been any tension between us. We ended up in the same sub-group and we worked quite well together as part of a team of 4. But then I noticed she had started allocating all the more important or interesting jobs to anybody but me and the sense of here we go again was spookily strong. This is "an on-going situation" as they say. 

Another Caroline was a lady in her 40s who had moved to a rented house a few doors away from where I live. Her husband had moved to the town when he took up a promoted post locally and she was feeling quite lonely. We used to meet up for coffee and a chat on a Saturday (her husband used to work Saturdays) but then she started making excuses that gradually got stranger and less believable. I took the hint and regular contact lapsed. Then her friend from another rented house moved away at short notice and Caroline made contact with me. This is "an on-going situation".



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