OVER AND OVER

My girlfriends and I are in a bookclub -- it's sort of the core of what keeps us together, though we all came here as friends of most one another in the group already.

Several years later, we still meet at least once a month for one thing or another. We're lucky if bookclub is actually held every other month.

As you can imagine, we girlfriends can be our best friends and worst enemies. We share everything -- rejoicing in one another's triumphs and criticizing one another's mistakes, all in the name of friendship. And, like any group, certain of us get along better than others on an individual basis, or a given day. But we all get along well enough to share a (short) book discussion and a (longer) conversation about anything and everything -- nothing is off limits.

We're ALL strong-willed, as passionate with our anger as we are with our kindness.

Sometimes the criticism and anger ring louder.

Tonight was one of those nights. Since I try not to share other people's business, I will just say that I did end up telling two friends to stop it. Just stop the analyzing of another friend's situation to death. It was just too much I could tell.

There were more situations like that tonight than normally and it just made me uptight and uncomfortable and a little sad at how some of us can be so abrasive and pushy and think it's OK because we mean well.

Tonight, I called bullshit. And, judging by the thank-you's I got, it was well appreciated.

But it still leaves me wondering why we "friends" are sometimes our own worst enemies. What does it mean to support your friends -- is it unconditional and are you still allowed to opine even when opinions are not asked for? Are unsolicited opinions, most often of the critical sort, the opposite of being supportive by their mere nature?

These are the things which will keep me awake tonight.