A Case of Mistaken Intent

(Read Meeting Anger Head On first, August 24 post)

Okay, so we were mistaken. It wasn't road rage after all. The man's flailing arms and yells were interpreted by Tom and me as anger. Yet, what he was trying to say was, "Your motorcycle is about to fall off your trailer." Oops! Tom handled the case of mistaken intent very well, but I reacted by meeting anger (or what I thought was anger) head on with some anger of my own.

After Tom tightened the straps on his Harley and we continued our drive to North Carolina, I sat silent while a tag team of mind demons had their way with me. I was embarrassed; I felt silly and childish; my behavior had been irrational and immature.

It was the second time in a week that I had succumbed to behavior unbecoming of an adult, and the first encounter a few days before had resulted in the loss of a friend. And, not the kind of friend you meet in the candy aisle at Seven-Eleven, discover you both like Snickers (the ones with dark chocolate), and then you become friends on Facebook. Nope! This was a friend with decades of history. A friend who held me in her arms nineteen years ago when I discovered Perfect Number Six wasn't so perfect after all. A friend who moved her 832 pairs of shoes out of her guest bedroom to accommodate my three-month stay at her home, and she was that one special friend who had her own bedroom in my home. Who but a close friend would agree to spoon inside a black trash bag on a cold winter night at the lake cabin after I had told her that plastic keeps the heat in?  (It didn't keep us warm, but we laughed all night long.) My offbeat sense of humor fit perfectly with her zaniness, and while others may have thought we were crazy mad, we didn't care.  We loved and supported each other through happy times and sad, the good boyfriends and the "what-was-I-thinking" ones. I was the friend companion at her wedding, and she was with me in Paris when I married Tom.

So what happened? No one really knows for certain. The she said/she said details got scrambled up in the passion of the moment. A case of mistaken intent, perhaps? Like the yelling, flailing man who was only trying to help, had one friend's good intentions been misunderstood? And to what extremes does one go to save their friends from themselves? Where do you draw the line? Where's does the safe area end and the danger zone begin? Does the longevity of a relationship blur that line? Is it only natural that close relationships trade the cautious, polite courtesies offered in the beginning for a more direct, to-the-point approach later on?

There are two sides of the story, of course. There always are. The right side and the right side. Supporting both right sides were brutal honesty, explanations (excuses), past transgressions, indignation, pride, and anger. When it was over, it was really over.  At least that's what she said.