So my BF is driving me nuts. Certifiably, pull-my-hair-out nuts. We've been friends for over 20 years, with a few breaks here and there, but over all, it's been good between us.

And it still is. Don't get me wrong. I love her dearly, but she talks a lot. A LOT. Fine, that's not news to me, it's just part of being friends with her. I get it and accept it.

She recently changed jobs and now that she's running her own business, she's got hours upon hours to chat, because what she's doing can be done while gabbing. That's all well and good, but she seems to expect ME to want to chat the day away too. No. I got shit to do, you know.

Or do I? Since I'm a stay-at-home mom with one in school full time and one in school every afternoon, she somehow assumes this frees me up to talk and talk and talk. Some days it does, some days it doesn't. Some days I'm not doing much but I don't feel like talking for hours on end even if I can.

So we fell into the routine of chatting for half an hour or so every morning, right after I drop my oldest at school. That was fine. This half hour has stretched into an hour or an hour and half. Oy. And now she calls or texts in the afternoon after I've dropped off my youngest, in my precious few hours I have to myself to work on my latest novel. And sometimes she calls after dinner. She feels free to text me at all hours between 7 am and 11 pm. I'm not even kidding, she text me at 11:16 pm last night to update me on her dog, the one's who's had tummy issues recently. Seriously. After 11 at night. "Good news! She pooped! Soft, but not the runs!" Well, yippee-fuckin'-skippee.

I was up, and I saw that, but I did not reply.

Now, I really should grow some balls here. We're working Moms in our thirties, for Christ's sake, not 16 year olds on summer break. I should tell her, 'Love ya, but I got shit to do.' But it would hurt her immensely. I'm so scared of hurting her feelings that I cringe every time I see it's her calling, because quick conversations with her do not exist. There's no way to have a 10 minute conversation without feeling rude when I cut her off to announce that I have to get going. I always hear the unmistakable hint of let-down in her voice if I try to make a break for it any time before at least an hour's up.

So I'm taking the coward's way out...not picking up the phone when she calls outside of the morning, and not calling her back for a few hours, even if I'm sitting on my ass watching Judge Judy. But I can't not call her back soon, because she knows I'm home. I live in the country, and aside from grocery shopping once a week and a few scattered, quick errands here and there, I'm home. If she suspects I'm not at home, she'll text me. And text me. And text me. Even if I don't reply.

I feel like I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. This has been getting progressively worse the last month or two, to the point I want to stick a screwdriver through my ear rather than listen to another half hour of prattling about her dog's acupuncture visit. Yeah, I'm not kidding. She loves animals, as do I, and does rescue, so in an hour long conversation, you can count on at least thirty minutes of it being about the dogs. Every time, just about.

So this morning I took the first step to reclaiming my time. After 45 minutes, most of it about her dog's vet visits for prolonged upset stomach, I pried myself loose mumbling something about needing to cut back on my phone time each day because I really needed to spend more time with my youngest before she starts school full time next year. She seemed surprised, but took it well.

A first step in reclaiming my free-from-constant-gabbing time? Perhaps. Time will tell. In the meantime, I'll try to grow a set. Because I love her, but enough is enough. But it's as much my fault as hers for allowing it to get this way. Time for a change, because I want to enjoy our friendship again, not feel like she's some leech in my life.

Because right now, that's exactly what she is.