I thought I saw you in a crowd. It sounds so silly. I think I made it up. At New York Comic Con, wearing a Balatro shirt, looking like you did in my memory. I don’t know if you’ll see this, but I blocked and deleted your phone number. I archived photos. I sent apologies to the people who I hurt by enabling you. I deconstructed the person who I was before, agonized over every conversation. I was angry at friends who stopped caring about you because they were able to see you clearly before I did. I spiraled. I dug at old wounds. Falling out does not suit me. It weighs heavy on my heart like a drowning boulder. I have given myself away, played my whole hand, as I always have, but I need to write. Thinking is not my venue. As Remi Wolf says, “dear god, I’m covered in mud!”
We met at a time of transience, uncertainty, and indecision. We met at a time when I was lonely, scared, and moldable. We met at a time when I was mean and angry at the world. You were pedantic and disconnected. You were also funny, bright and caring. I was a gushing wound in need of validation, who felt rejected, and who wanted more than anything to find my people. In our society, friendships ending are not held in the same regard as romantic relationships. Friendship breakups can be just as painful, if not more so.
Yes, we were friends, but when we first met, you objectified me and other women. You never took accountability for the harm you did in relationships. You lacked relationship skills to keep in touch with others. You defended abusers and dismissed victims. You hurt women you dated. You enjoyed telling edgy jokes to the discomfort of others. You fell into bouts of depression and self-loathing. I thought I was different. I thought I would be able to reach in and hold the hand inside you. I was the holder of your secrets. I was the chosen of a sacred few and wore that like a badge of honor. All relationships have a scale for weighing what habits we’re willing to accept and what we cannot before the scale begins to tip.
You had every excuse mapped out like a master so nothing could touch you. You refused to change your behavior, and after a decade of perceived growth, regressed. It was shocking to hear misogyny exude from you once again as if no time had passed. I felt overwhelmed, exhausted, and crazy. I needed distance. It was more than feeling used financially, and it was even more still, than feeling betrayed by the webs of lies you used to protect yourself. It was more than making comments about my family or husband or our friends. It was more than dismissing my accomplishments. It felt like all the progress I had seen you make was fraudulent. The lack of empathy, emotional manipulation, unfettered pettiness, untruthful gossip, and blamelessness was too much to bear. Your good will was spent up. Years of being distant, acting out, and neglecting other people’s feelings culminated into a boiling over. I was done making excuses for it. I didn’t like the person I was when I was your friend.
I thought you changed. How could you grow up when I enabled you so? But it wasn’t my responsibility to raise you. I was never your mother. You had a demon chasing you, a deep sadness, but that doesn’t make you exceptional in your hurt. None of this makes you a monster. You’re a work in progress. We all are. Our progress put us on different paths. We all have scars we walk with, and that’s the beauty of being human. We are the villains and heroes of each other’s stories, we hold multiple truths and contain multitudes, and we have different perspectives. This is mine. It was never about me, how helpful I could be, how virtuous I could be by seeing the good in you, and how exceptional I could be as the one woman who remained permanent to you. It was never about me at all. It is not about my self-actualization despite that being the lens I use to view my own life. I was a fucking idiot, broken in my own way, loving being a bitch at times, searching for answers in outside validation. Regardless of how much you hurt me, and regardless of how much you betrayed those close to me, I am still a fucking idiot. I still love so much about you. What is grief, if not love persevering? I still think you’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, and that you’re the only one in the way of your success.
They say oil and water don’t mix, but I don’t think we’re oil and water. We’re more like gasoline and a match. It has taken me a year to process the loss of our friendship. There’s a part of me that wants you to want me back, to pick things up again, to repair. I am still processing. I keep beating this horse dead. Guilt was gutting me, but I am not longer the person who I was and I no longer feel the same. I know that you blame me. I was there, dutifully waiting to become the feminine monster, the succubus who lured others away, the proverbial evil serpent in the grass, or whichever trope that makes this easier for you. I forgive you and I am sorry for many things. I forgive you for what you said and what you did. I made decisions, you made decisions, and now we must live with them. I hope you live a long and beautiful life. There’s still so much beauty to behold in this world despite all the ugliness.
Thou mayest. It’s from John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. We are more than our past. We are more than our parents. We get to chose who we are despite the evil forces that may compel us. We get to chose how we treat people. Not all friendships are forever. Letting go is an essential part of the process I neglected for so long. I was so afraid to say goodbye. I was so afraid to abandon people even if they were destroying me. As underscores sings, “I’ll wish you well forever, there’s more than one way to look at it / That’s just how it happened.” I thought I saw you and I walked away. I don’t know if it was real or a mirage, a projection on some con goer that I stared at for a second too long that my subconscious could not parse. Real or not, I let your ghost go into that crowd and melt into a stranger.
Leave a Reply