Un Clavo Saca Otro Clavo: One nail drives out another (reference)
The “situation” with Alicia Keys was driving me out of my mind on Tuesday evening, to the point of not being able to enjoy my dinner and a movie outing with my friends Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi. I’ll devote a separate entry to the movie Eat Pray Love (2010), as there is much to be said (little of which is good).
I woke up Wednesday morning with Alicia Keys on my mind. I made an executive decision to distract myself and not obsess over it. So I asked myself: what was I obsessing over before this issue came along? Ah, my issue with Charlotte!
My friend Charlotte and I have not been in speaking terms for a while. Mostly one-sided (mine). The parallel between the two situations was bothering me: Alicia Keys wanted to shun me from her life, just like I had done to Charlotte. Only, Charlotte didn’t really complain when it happened. It almost felt mutual. With Alicia Keys, I went full force on her to try to find out what was wrong and what I could do to fix it.
So maybe now was a good time to call myself on my hypocrisy and mend things with Charlotte. So, I spent all day obsessing about how to talk to her for the first time in 8 months.
I spent all day talking to friends: Enrique Montoya, Ellen DeGeneres, Monica Geller, Tori Amos. I had to make sure I was doing the right thing by breaking the silence. Unfortunately, the person whose opinion I cared about the most, my husband Brian, was not available for comment. He was in meetings all day, and my annoying constant calls were not going anywhere. I had to wait until we got home to discuss the situation.
There are MANY levels of psychology at play with my situation with Charlotte, which I won’t get into (mostly because they make me look really pathetic). All I can say is that my problems with her evolved from the moment I started thinking about it, until the moment I finally decided to make the call. It was actually kind of cool how my friends helped me piece it all together: how she feels, how her behavior can be explained, how MY behavior can be explained, how a deep conversation would go, how a lighter approach would work.
So I made the call, and we are having dinner tonight at Asmara in Cambridge. It’s this great Ethiopian place I fell in love with a couple of years ago. You had me at Mango juice.
So, like they say, un clavo saca a otro clavo (a nail drives out another nail). One obsession quickly took precedence over another. If my issues with one friend can serve some kind of purpose to fix another friendship, then it won’t all be for naught.
I’m hanging out with Alicia Keys on Saturday afternoon. Maybe things will be a little clearer then.
ina