Done.

So I think of myself as a caring and compassionate person. I am emotional and tender hearted, just ask anyone, they will roll their eyes because I have been known to cry with a good Hallmark commercial or those darn Maxwell House commercials. Anyway so I get news today that a woman I used to work with was back in the hospital. I feel nothing.
The back story: We will call her "R." She is old than I am, somewhere in her 50's and she and I worked well together when we worked together. She was a special sort of person in that there was a way that you had to handle her sometimes with kid gloves. But none-the-less, she liked me and we worked well together. Well R was not a fan of people, except me, and she told me so, she was not particularly nice, she was to me, she was okay, mostly quiet. She loved her cats more than life and then her dog too. So several months ago, I am told by a mutual co-worker that she was in the hospital, that she had suffered a stroke, a broken ankle and her blood sugar was like 1600. This was not good. She was found by her mother in her home laying across the coffee table onto her couch. She was conscious but not alert. It was a very scary time. She was taken to ICU. I went and sat with her there, talked to her mom, visited throughout her stay in the hospital. But she said then as she has always said, "I don't care." Well being that I fancy myself an observer of human behavior and a junior counselor, I asked her is maybe she should talk to a therapist. She fought me on this and said she was not depressed or crazy. I told her that maybe she could use an anti depressant to take the edge off. She said there was no edge, she just didn't care, and hated people. This was her typical answer or response to everything.
So while she was in the hospital her co-workers took up a collection, got volunteers and donations so that they could strip out her house and clean it for her. Why? Because she was a horder, she didn't clean up after the 4 cats and stuff was piled everywhere. They even gave her a bigger bathroom to accomodate a wheelchair or a walker for her return home. Wow. These people were amazing. And while she appreciated what they had done, she complained about everythng too. So she came home. She attempted to go back to work but that didn't work out, the doctor said that she would never be able to work there again. So she is home-home.
I tried a coupld times to make contact with her, even got angry with her that she had to go back to the hosp but wouldn't ask for help. She has my number, she has numbers to a few of us that can help and are/were willing to help. But she didn't call, she didn't call back if you called to check on her and IF she did talk to you she always said she was fine regardless how she was. I was done. I decided that I can not be the only one to care about our friendship,,, if she didn't care, why should I? It has to be a give and take. I do know that there are times in every friendship where one needs the other a little more but that is usually reciprocated somewhere down the road. Not in this case. Ever. I am done.

Current day: I received a call today that R was found in her home and thought to be dead. Someone saw her laying on the floor but she was not moving. Well once everyone got there and got into the home she was awake, again not coherent but she was not dead. Her cat however was and had been for a while - seems that the dog had made a snack out of the cat - unknown how long it had been that the dog had been fed. I find out later that she had stopped taking her insulin at the beginng of May. This, to me, my opinion only, is a slow suicide attempt. She knows she needs it to stay alive, she chooses to not take it. Hmm. So anyway the girl that called it in started to cry stating that she should have done more for her. I told her that R would not let anyone help her, this was her choice, we tried. She didn't and doesn't want help, she has made this choice.

So I get the call today and I felt nothing.
Well I feel sadness because no one should live like she has and sadness that she won't let anyone help her, doesn't want anyone to help her.
I am not crying. I am not worried. I just "am." Feel like "it's whatever."
If this was any of my other friends I would feel more and that makes me sad too.

Sad.