During my married years, I had a best friend. We talked frequently, hung out together and she and her husband were the couple my ex and I spent time with. My ex was her daughter's godfather. For nearly 13 years, she was a daily part of my life and we talked about everything. I was there for her through two very difficult pregnancies, her own marital issues, in-law issues and at least the first half of her battle with thyroid cancer. But then my divorce happened....
I can't quite explain what happened except to say I very much needed a support system during a very, very painful time and she didn't have much support to give (or seemingly much desire to be emotionally supportive). And my response to what I deemed to be a fairly callous conversation one dark, stormy, very lonely night was to walk away and not look back. I very much believe Maya Angelou's quote, "when people show you who they are, believe them." Throughout our friendship, I hadn't had a lot of dire problems, but she had. I felt that I'd been there for her many, many times over the years and had expected some semblance of the same support during my most difficult time. And when it was made clear that that wouldn't happen, out of self-preservation, I cut my losses and walked away.
Technically, she had been my ex's friend first. I met her through him. And I had always known that if the marriage went south, then the friendship would probably head that direction, too. In retrospect, I also recognize that she wasn't terribly surprised by the divorce either. When I called her to tell her, she showed no surprise whatsoever. So I assume she knew it was coming before I did. That's neither here nor there, though.
The point of this is that from time to time, I miss her. A lot. From time to time, I look her up on Facebook to see how's she doing. It's now been years since we've spoken and there's so much water under the bridge that going back isn't possible. But that doesn't keep me from wondering how she and her family are doing. And it doesn't keep me from questioning if walking away was the right thing to do. At the time, I was in so much pain that I just didn't have it in me to try to manage the turbulence that occurred. I wasn't focused enough or emotionally present enough to find a better solution. Having said this, however, if the same situation presented itself today, I'm not sure my choice would be that different.
As much as I miss her, I'm not sure we could have remained friends regardless of what happened. Truth be told, I'm not who I was all those years ago when we were friends. I doubt she'd like me very much now. I'm someone else today - completely different from who I once was. I'm not even sure she'd recognize me if she saw me. And the fact that she's still married with kids living a settled life and I'm single and still struggling to find myself puts the distance between us even further.
Anyway, we had a fun friendship for a really long time and there are days when I really miss her and our friendship. Today was one of those days.
I hope she's doing well. I hope her kids are thriving and doing well. And hopefully she feels the same about me.
I think I'll always miss the friendship, though.
