I LOST one of my best friends about two years ago. Dear me no, she didn’t die. Nothing as morbid as that. We just ‘broke up’. I know that sounds ridiculous but when you’re really close to someone you don’t just drift apart. You literally have to have ‘the talk’ and break up.
It’s just like breaking up with a boyfriend and just as painful. You go through all the same emotions: relief, pain, anger, nostalgia, grief and finally acceptance.
The reason our friendship came to an end was because I could no longer take her putting me down. I felt she always had to put me in my place and tell me what to do. When I tried to be myself, she’d slap me down. It often felt as if she tried to stifle the free spirit in me. As for the exhibitionist in me, well she couldn’t handle her. In fact she absolutely abhorred her and was forever making snide remarks about her behaviour.
Even worse she’d home in on my insecurities and feed them. Instead of building me up, she’d make little comments she knew I’d lose sleep over thanks to knots in my tummy. Eventually I could take it no more and we had a huge row. Words were exchanged: ones that could never be taken back. A month later we had ‘the talk’.
So what went wrong? How do two women, whose friendship spans over two decades, suddenly stop speaking? Especially two women as close as we were.
I think I basically grew up and started standing up for myself. She couldn’t accept that. She was used to me being afraid of her and under her thumb. I don’t think she meant to bully me because I know she loved me. She just had her own issues and I was easy to manipulate. When I stopped wanting to be manipulated things became complicated. In my effort to stand up for myself she said I became aggressive. I thought I was being assertive. It was a recipe for disaster.
It’s two years on, we still don’t speak and yet I can’t say we are like strangers. She knows me like the back of her hand and I know her like mine. We share a lifetime of love, laughter and memories.
I saw her recently. It was like old times. In fact it was better. We were able to laugh and joke. She’s highly intelligent and a quick thinker so her company is good fun.
Unfortunately I can’t ever go back being so close to her and I’ve realised it has nothing to do with her. It’s me.
She isn’t mean or horrible, it’s my inability to stand up to her and to set boundaries that’s the problem. She is somehow able to bulldoze through my defences and to hurt me. If I liked myself more I wouldn’t care.
Anything she says wouldn’t hurt me, it would just roll off. However I am not yet 100 per cent comfortable in my own skin and so her comments cling to me like lint on black trousers. I can try and pick them off but no matter how hard I try, a few always seem to remain, spoiling the outfit.
I guess our personalities just clash. It’s a shame because in many ways we get on like a house on fire. We also go back so many years that she’s as familiar to me as an old comfy sweatshirt.
I think I feel a lot of guilt where this friend is concerned. I wish we could have salvaged the relationship but it was just really getting very unhealthy for both of us. I was no angel by the end of it, either.
To make matters worse, she always used to think I was so ‘nice’ and I’m not. I can be really nasty and horrible and bitchy like everyone else. She once told me I didn’t have a mean bone in my body. I think the minute she said that I became mean. I don’t think I was able to live up to such a high standard. I remember feeling overwhelmed by that comment, especially since it wasn’t true. I have really bad thoughts and can think terrible, awful things. I think if someone sat in my head for a day they’d have me locked up. And if there was such a thing as thought police, well I’d never see the light of day again.
Anyway about this friend, it’s all rather sad. She and I have such different goals in life. I understand her and she understands me but the way we are and have become just no longer mesh.
I realise now that the bitchiness she projects has nothing to do with me. I know she doesn’t mean to be hurtful or to put me down. The problem is she does both. After a while I became tired of talking about things and started to lash out at her.
When I got tired of lashing out, I just kept quiet. Once I kept quiet, things started to fester. I’m a big believer in communication; it’s like a sewerage system that gets rid of all the crap efficiently and without blockages.
When you don’t talk things through, the system becomes a cesspit that is never drained and before long all the waste starts to build up until it spills over. The stench is not only unbearable but there’s just so much crap that needs to be cleaned out. In cesspit terms that’s likely possible. In human relationships it’s not so easy.
Once you’ve got a lot of anger, bitterness and hurt piled up it’s very hard to work through. It’s even harder when you don’t trust the other person and are afraid they’ll hurt you. The latter is my issue and fear of being hurt. It is likely unfair of me to have assumed my friend would have hurt me if I had simply sat down to talk to her. Like I said though, it’s my issue. Just like she has hers, I have mine.
At the end of the day though I hope she knows I love her still and always will. No matter how much time has lapsed since I last heard the familiar tune of her ringtone on my mobile and we talked until the wee hours or how long it has been since I cried on her shoulder, I’ll never forget her. It’s just times have changed and like my ex, we can’t turn back the clock. I wish her the best though. Always. I hope in my heart that she is happy and that the demons she carries with her are finally silenced.
