Best Friends? Not So Much

Letting go is a struggle for me, that goes for just about anything and everything. Its even worse when that "anything and everything" is a friend, not just any friend but a friend of 26 years. A lifetime friend. I've been in the process of letting that friendship go over the past week and quite honestly, it hasn't been easy because there was no real reason for the friendship ending. No big fight. No "I don't think we should be friends anymore" talk. I think if there had been, it'd be easier to place blame, to say it was all her fault making it much easier to move on.

I don't remember a time in my life we weren't friends. My earliest memories include her and there are pictures documenting our friendship before that. Our lives became intertwined so much so that people often assumed we were sisters. My family became her family and vice versa. The fact that we never attended the same school didn't bother us. Evenings and weekends were ours to play barbies and make believe before graduating on to boys and makeup. Summers were spent going on vacation with each other's families, sleeping out under the stars, sneaking out to meet other friends in the hopes we wouldn't be caught, telling stories by candle light. We had matching necklaces that when put together formed a heart with the words best friend across it. When we were 9 we pricked our fingers and became "blood sisters." At 13 we talked our parents into sending us to sleep away camp because we thought it would be fun, we lasted a week and a half. At 16 we learned how to drive and spent hours with her older brother trying to learn how to parallel park. At 18 we helped each other move into our respective dorms at different colleges. While we were living two separate lives we were still the best of freinds -- the calls were less frequent and emails sporadic, but I never once doubted the strength of our friendship. After college I stood beside her as she married the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. We celebrated she and her husbands purchase of a new home by spending the night in sleeping bags on the floor with a couple bottles of wine watching movies on a laptop, laughing and talking because her husband refused to be in the house without furniture and cable. We still spent a week each summer at the lake where our families had vacationed together when we were children.



Over the past few years the phone calls became less and less. The emails all but stopped. I was working and had a life here. She was unhappily married and living away. I just attributed it to us leading two separate and very different lives. Then she called to say she needed to leave her husband. I drove to get her and we went to her cousin who is an attorney. I was in court with her when the judge declared her turbulent marriage over. That was the last time I felt like we were really best friends. After that she spiraled into a deep depression and shut off communications with everyone, even her parents. We saw each other only 4 or 5 times a year at various functions or family events, but we always had catching up to do and for a few hours all was fine. We would laugh, have fun, it would be just like it was in the past. Eventually she worked through the depression, moved to a new city and started down a new road. Although our schedules kept us from seeing other there were text messages and gchats. Then one day they just stopped on her end, no explanations or anything. I called and emailed, never hearing from her. Every once in a great while we could chat on gchat. A few weekends ago I saw her for the first time in almost a year.

The discomfort between the two of us was physically uncomfortable, not only for us but for our other friends and family members as well. We had absolutely nothing to say to each other. There was a few brief things a "how are you doing" a mumbled "fine." It was as if we were strangers who hadn't shared a lifetime of memories. I didn't know where to start. Generic questions were answered by one word answers until we were finished eating and she went to a different room. I became so upset I left after an hour and a half. After putting on my coat, I glanced in her direction and she looked at me. "I'm leaving, maybe I'll see you around," I said knowing then that I wouldn't be seeing her for a long time. In response she did a half nod said and said "Yeah, bye" quickly turning her attention back to whatever it was she was pretending to be interested in. I went to my car and cried. How did we get to this point? How did we neglect our friendship to the point where it hurt to talk.

Over the next few days all of the memories I had of the two of us constantly replayed in my mind. I thought about picking up the phone to call her, but something always stopped me. I hadn't been getting a response for months, why would it be any different now? Other friends who had been at the party called to ask what had happened between us, had we had a fight? No I dont know what happened. We drifted apart? We are at two different points in our lives? I did something that made her mad? I just don't know. Maybe I was naive in just thinking that we could pick up where we had left off like we had always done. There were lots of maybe and what if questions that are still unanswered. It would be easier to place the blame solely on her but that would be unfair. I could have made the time to go visit her, but I didn't. Maybe our friendship just ran its course. Maybe we will eventually find common ground again. Until then, I put away the pictures of the two of us, as well as memento's from over the years -- the ladybug stuffed animal she brought when I got my tattoo, the manatee coffee mug she brought me back from FL when she spent a few weeks down there studying the mammals, the picture of the two of us at her bachelorette party in the Friends Forever frame.

Friendship breakups are hard, harder than boyfriend breakups. In my case, there are more memories, more crazy stories. So many more years of everything. I wish her well and know that we'll see each other every now and then. But it will never be the same. I am letting go and moving on. At this point, thats all I can do.