It was inevitable...Seriously, I've been half expecting this for months now... and just of late the Universe has been sending me very unsubtle signals to get me ready...
So it really wasn't THAT much of a shock to see Sheba when Ma and I were out shopping today.
Partly it was all about location, location, location... we did the usual Food Thing At The Crack Of Sparrow's Whatsit like always, then we kinda came back here and sat around poking each other in the eye going "where shall we go, where shall we go... I don't know, where do you want to go... I don't know, where do YOU want to go"... okay, not LITERALLY poking each other in the eye, but it amounted to about the same thing.
Eventually Ma suggested Tea Tree Plaza... now, for any number of reasons, I usually avoid TTP like the proverbial... partially, I think, because in the back of my mind I knew that it was the last place that I'd known Sheba was working... granted that was several years ago now (I could work it out, but I don't wanna), but still, the aversion stuck (not counting last year's foray down there).
But I figured that the odds were pretty low, and we haven't been there in about a million billion years (or, you know, like nearly a year), so why the hell not. Shows what I know, obviously.
I know that I've only ever really laid out a partial breadcrumb trail about the whole Sheba story, so I probably need to do at least a version of the "Sheba and Yani" story... suffice to say that she was the Grace to my Will, the Karen to my Jack, the Hag to my Queen (obscure Will & Grace joke, bonus points if you can place it)... and for a vast number of reasons, everything kind of went sour, and the last I heard from her she was pregnant and saying goodbye (and if I stop and think about it too much, that actually sounds like part of the plot to the final Will & Grace episode anyway).
True story, those were the only two facts I remember from the last email I ever got from her. Pregnant. Goodbye.
Anyway, the Universe, in it's infinite Universeness has been somewhat softening me up for a possible run in with Sheba... I keep seeing somewhat Rubenesque women with bright red hair everywhere I turn (which actually turned out to be pretty pointless because her hair is black now). In fact, on a recent episode of The Cook and The Chef I almost swore that one of the people in the background of a "party" scene was Sheba (and by a whole three degrees of separation thing, it's actually not as unlikely as it might otherwise sound), but when I got a closer look at the woman in question, she was much too old, and therefore not Sheba.
Anyway, Ma and I were at TTP, wandering aimlessly through Big W, doing I think a second lap of the store (there's that whole "happens for a reason" thing again) when I heard somebody call my name. Now I knew it wasn't Ma, since she was right near me, and invariably when I hear somebody call my name out in the world it's highly unlikely they're actually talking to me, but I kinda looked around anyway just in case, didn't see anything, but was still kinda standing there, when the crowd parted and there was Sheba...
I'll be honest... (to quote Morpheus for a second) what happened, happened and couldn't have happened any other way (I know, because I'm still alive)... but I kinda just feel numb about the whole situation.
I mean it wasn't BAD, we didn't have a screaming match in a the middle of a moderately priced variety store or anything... actually it was quite good, she was pleased to see me, I was pleased to see her, we had the biggest hug, told each other we loved each other, she called me a silly queen, I called her a hag (see Will & Grace reference earlier) and she introduced me to Small Child Number 3, then dragged Ma and I off to meet Husband Number 2 and Original Child Number 1 and Small Child Number 2. Which was a little trippy all on it's own I have to say... but I'm already loving SCN3 to death. And OCN1 got HUGE, but then you would expect that after, what, three years... and she was in that whole "about to get huge any time" age bracket when I last saw her.
Actually the whole conversation about what had happened in the years inbetween was amusing if slightly tragic... she was all "And this, and this, and this and this"... and I was all "Life... about the same". Me = Tragic Bitch. But we knew that.
Anyway, like I said, I'm a little numb about the whole thing... every time I attempt to start thinking about things my brain just kinda locks up. I'm not sure if it's because I'm guarding myself from feeling too much of anything just in case there isn't a place for me in her life anymore (I'd say "or vice versa", but hello, see the paragraph above)... or if the pieces just don't fit anymore... I dunno. I think I'm just kinda on pause for the time being.
It was funny (funny "interesting", not funny haha)... she said to me that she'd been thinking about me of late too (that pesky Universe again) and that she had thought about just dropping around to the house (since I am in the phone book, so she knew I was still there) but she wasn't sure what kind of reception she would have gotten. And my honest reply to her was that right up until the very moment when I saw her coming towards me in Big W I couldn't have said what my reaction would have been either.
Okay, that's maybe a little tiny white lie, because I've ignored random people who I thought could have been her in the past, but I'd never been sure they were her (and now I'm pretty positive none of them were). And interestingly I only had a conversation with Ma about this very situation last week (after I'd seen the possible doppelganger on the teevee) and she asked me how I'd feel about running into her again (stoopid Universe working in strange ways) and while I wasn't sure, I wasn't adverse to the idea. Plus, as I said to Ma, Sheba was the one who "took the friendship away", so it wasn't really like I was pissy about anything.
So Sheba has my number again now (I have the same number now as I did then too), and interestingly (yeah, I know, it stopped being "interesting" a while back, but I'm running out of adverbs) I didn't take her number... not that I actually could have done, because my mobile was at home on charge (which took two attempts because it failed to charge when I put it on before the whole food shopping thing but I didn't discover that until we were about to head out for Round 2... but then it fails to charge about every second time if I don't switch the stupid thing on and off, so that's not really that surprising)... but for whatever reason, I actually forgot that until later... that whole overloading brain thing I guess. She has Friday's off (and works in a whole different industry from the last time I saw her, which actually isn't that surprising given her track record) and so we're going to organise something for this Friday. Possibly something in the morning I think because I have my haircut at 1pm... it's that whole "finite time period" thing too... safety net. Which I'm sure we won't need, but I'd prefer to cover my butt, as it were, just in case.
Ma did ask me if I wanted to externalise any of it afterwards... but I really didn't... I didn't much want to INternalise it either... it was a whole world of me not wanting to "ternalise" in either direction. Even while thinking about it enough to actually write this post I haven't really been "thinking" about it. My brain will probably do about fifty billion surround-sound technicolour dreams tonight to process it all... thank god I never remember my dreams.
We did continue shopping for what seemed like hours and hours after that (I actually had to ask Ma at some point what the hell the time was because it felt like we'd been in there forever and there really isn't anywhere you can judge by natural light)... Ma finally made a decision about a bracelet for Christmas to replace the one she lost when she was in Melbourne (it's been trying to escape of her wrist for months, and finally saw it's chance when she was in a whole other city), which is a bonus, because I think if I'd had to go into the same six stores one more time to look at the same mostly unappealing range of silver bracelets many more times I might have gone a little more insane, so that's her present from me (or at least part of it) out of the way.
I've also decided to make J a "goodie basket"... but not filled with food... filled with all the things that I can think of that just say "J" to me... so far we have about four packets of sparklers, a musical Christmas elephant (it's both noisy and annoying... AND an elephant), a choke chain for a large dog (and no, he doesn't own a large dog... draw your own conclusions there), this silly oversized "leatherman" hat that says "Bad Boy" on the front of it and a "Mouth Glowstick" (I'm not sure either, but it sounded bad and wrong and amusing). I just need to work out an appropriate "basket" to put everything in... I'm thinking possibly one of those recyclable shopping bags with a random cartoon character on them... I just don't know which one.
We got a few other bits and pieces for other people too... nothing too exciting, so much so, in fact, that I can't actually remember WHAT else we bought.
After we left TTP we called in at The Warehouse (that's actually where I got the dog collar and one of the sets of sparklers) which is just a scary, scary, sad and tragic store (possibly more so because we actually bought quite a few things). Although there's nothing like watching albino goth teens buying an inflatable paddling and a purple pool noodle... that's a story just waiting to be told. Then on the way home, just after Ma had asked me (for about the third or fourth time) if I was sure I didn't want to swing past the place we go food shopping to pick up some more paint (I'm pretty much out of black) and I said I could manage, lo and behold we went past Cheap as Chips and stopped off there (yes, I know, I buy my art supplies at Cheap as Chips, so sue me).
And yeah... that was about it really...
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