Edited to point out typo in the title - should say “kid”, just one!
My son and I sometimes going and visit an old school friend of mine who lives in Australia. He alway has a nice enough time but it’s not his favourite holiday. She doesn’t have kids and although we do activities for him, there isn’t a lot happening where she lives.
I’d planned to go and see her this year and she said she was thrilled, but that work would be very busy during the week. We threw around some ideas for things to do at the weekends while we were there.
I then found out that a group of mums from we know are taking their kids away for 10 days at the same time, and we’ve been invited.
This is a dream for my son. This group has gone away before and the timing’s not worked out for us to go with, as he was with my ex those weeks, or I haven’t been able to take the time off work.
I’d made up my mind that we’d go on the group trip instead of visiting my friend. It’s really special for my son and he’ll have a much better time.
I won’t get another chance to get to my friend this year.
I don’t get to talk to her on the phone loads because of the time zones, so hadn’t told her, but I’ve finally reached her today.
Before I had the chance to tell her, she confided that she’s really struggling mental health wise, to the extent she’s considered taking her own life, and that she feels so isolated over there and is just relieved people from home come and visit occasionally.
I was not expecting this at all. She was happy as Larry when I spoke to her last. I didn’t think she’d bat at eyelid as she’d already said she’d be really busy with work.
Obviously I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that we weren’t going to visit.
I feel absolutely awful.