This Time It’s For Good; When A Friendship Ends

In high school I had a friend who had the same name as me.

I was new to the school and she invited me to eat lunch with her and so began a friendship grounded in being military brats, music, basketball, bad poetry and laughing ourselves silly.

It even survived a move to the opposite coast.

Then one day she fell off the face of the earth.

I wasn’t worth hanging onto? Bewildered, I moved on.

And just as weirdly, she re-appeared several years later like nothing had ever happened.

We were both deep into child-rearing and being married and one day…you guessed it…*poof*

Gone again.

Up to my eyeballs in kids, family and work, I didn’t have much time to wonder “why?”.

The years flew by.

Columbine was on the news as I punched in at work one day and I knew she lived in the Denver area, with a kid that age. I found her number and called. How could I not?

She was my friend.

She answered with “We’re OK”, and so began another long association, through her cancer diagnosis, relapse, recovery, children growing and eventually the imploding of my marriage.

I had gained some insight on the way and I made this promise to myself: She had blown me off twice; if there was a third time it would be the last time.

I hoped the pattern of her wanting my friendship only when she needed me wasn’t real. We had a history and she and I went back farther than any non-related person in my life.

I did cherish that.

Apparently I was the only one of us who did because as my life crashed and burned, she bailed.

Again.

For the last time.

In a way, it was a relief; she had quoted me once “When people show you who they are, believe them”. I had been warned.

I deleted her phone number and email address and when her husband found me to leave a bizarre voicemail I deleted his number, too.

I wished her well, pushed that boat away from the dock and turned to continue into a future she would never share.

I don’t know where she is now, or if she is even alive.

I am thankful she was my friend in the long ago and I still laugh over things we did and said.

Reading this aloud before hitting “publish” brought tears to my eyes; I guess I will always grieve a little.

But maybe the best thing she ever did was to show me how to have people not treat me.

That I am worthy of love, that I am enough.

For that I will always be grateful.

Keeping the best parts.