In my life I can practically count the minutes that I have felt friendless, there have been so few. I have been blessed with such a beautiful community of people, some whom I have known and will know for years and others whom I have known for a finite time or experience and who disappear, sometimes to reappear at a later date, or sometimes to be gone from me forever. My friends don't come with labels that tell me who will be who. We just figure these things out as we go. I have been wrong about people before. There are some people I now consider my close friends, who I never thought I'd see again or that we'd be able to maintain a sustainable connection, as well as those who have been like family to me only to leave my life for one reason or another. Those are the friends I grieve for,the one I wish I didn't have to lose, but don't always know how to re-connect with.
Jem was one such friend. All throughout grad school she was my rock, my sister, my best friend, closer to me than anyone, the person who knew all my secrets, a person whose secrets I knew and kept (keep) and who was alternately nicknamed my twin or my wife. We were so close I sometimes knew what she was thinking. I would pick up the phone before it rang knowing it was her. And then we each went out separate ways. I went to the middle of nowhere New York state to complete my practicum and she ended up in Nepal.
We were both miserable in our way. I had chosen a journey that led me to a wintry small town with only about 15 people under 30 but over 21. I became depressed and lonely and spent a lot of time processing my intense reaction to grad school. There were days were I felt mentally ill or insane with the strength of my emotions.Even though I managed to build a small community of unconventional friends there, I missed the intimacy Jem and I shared. I missed having a best friend who got my stupid jokes and didn't have to ask me why I was crying. She was someone who simply knew me. And at that time in my life I desperately needed to be known and taken on my own terms. It can be really tiring breaking in new friends.
Meanwhile she had her own experiences which I won't disclose, as they are not my story to tell. When she returned from her adventures, she was physically and mentally depleted and very ill. She asked all of her friends for some time and space and that we not contact her until she felt ready. I waited a full six months before finally breaking down and sending her a birthday card. I didn't really expect a reply, but I got one and she seemed even worse than before. Shortly there after she chose to end our friendship. There were a lot of reasons, which out of respect for both of our privacy, I won't get into, but the end result was me feeling totally blindsided and abandoned by someone I had trusted and loved more than anyone.
I didn't see her for a year and when I did, it was a total accident. I didn't even know what to say to her. She acted like nothing had happened. We were both present for the graduation of some mutual friends and even as she sought me out, she never mentioned what had passed between us and I was still too hurt to do much more than tactfully keep my mouth shut. I had wanted to yell at her, to cuss her out for having the audacity to just walk back into my life and try to be the friend she had long since stopped being. I'm not that great with ambiguity and knowing that I wouldn't cause a scene that might spoil someone else's moment she deliberately kept near me, yet never really gave me the closure I had been craving. Since then, more than a year and a half has passed and I found out today that she is now married.
My first reaction was to be surprised...okay jaw droppingly stunned (you just kind of have to know her to understand how unexpected this is). Then after getting a little more context, I couldn't help but laugh because he sounds absolutely perfect for her. And then I felt happy to know that she is happy again and healthy and well. My only twinge of sadness came from not being able to be a part of her good. I guess when you really love someone, even when the shit doesn't work out or you can't be a part of that person's world anymore, there is some part of you that always wishes them well. Is this forgiveness? Well if anything I think I might have finally forgiven myself for failing as a friend (I know I didn't actually fail, it just felt that way for a very long time). Why is it always so much easier to forgive other people (even people who really burnt you) than it is to accept that you are less than perfect and might need to forgive yourself?
I've had all these weird processing moments lately, including a dream about the big round headed loser (and I'm not saying that out of malice, it's just how I've come to think of him) in which we saw each other again and he seemed really happy to see me, but we never actually spoke. Shoshana says that is my sub-conscious saying I forgive him and that while I can recognize that some part of me still loves him,I am blessed because I am free from the need to go down that road again. We've had closure (and make-closure, and re-break-up closure and damn how much more of that do I really need when we've both already kind of moved on?) So here's to moving on! But with friends it is so much more complicated than with boyfriends. I'm totally comfortable saying I forgive the big round headed loser, but I don't ever want to see him again.
Today I realized I do want to see Jem again. I probably won't. I certainly have enough going on with school starting in less than a week and all the other happenings in my life without adding any ex-friend drama to the mix, but I do irrationally wish we could be friends again. I know even if were able to talk through the last two and a half years it would never be the same, it could never be the same. The question is could I ever even trust her again after such an abrupt and shitty end to such a special and intense friendship?
What makes you trust someone? How do you know they won't screw you over? Why is it easier for me to trust women than men when I have been way more brutally and emotionally scarred by women than men? These are the things going through my mind on this beautiful windy day. As I make new friends and re-connect with old friends and do this whole sporadic dating thing, I am trying to be authentic about who I am. with that comes a certain amount of vulnerability. I want to be open and not hold onto past hurt, but I feel a bit of trepidation. One definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing and expecting different results. So how can I be as open and sincere and willing to love and be loved as I have been in the past and not get my heart broken? How can I be this new person that I am evolving into and still be true to who I have always been? I am working on this. I don't have any definite answers other than knowing that I don't regret a moment of my friendships and (even more surprisingly) of my past romantic relationships. They happened, parts were amazing, parts sucked, and then they ended, but it was worth it. They say scar tissue is the strongest tissue in the body...maybe you have to be exposed to pain to get strong enough to really love and be loved sustainably.
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