Live. Laugh. Hope. Love

To Have A Friend… February 6, 2012

So I meant to write a post recapping 2011, since I didn’t blog in 2011. And then January disappeared and 2011 is becoming further and further away. So here’s my recap of 2011: I got married. We went on a wonderful honeymoon. I turned 30. We lost power for a week because of a freak blizzard on Halloween weekend. And then it was 2012.

I didn’t write in January because there are things I want to write about, but I can’t. And I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to stop giving up writing, I knew that. But I knew I couldn’t write about certain things. Some, in time, I promise, I will write about. Some, for the same of privacy and protection, I won’t. How’s that for vague?

But here’s something that I want to write about. Friendship. Female friendship. When it is time to give up and when you should keep going. Actually, in my situation, it’s more like when it is time to stick to your guns and keep it gone for good and when to go back and try again. There’s this girl, I used to refer to her as Daisy, so we’ll continue with that name, and our history is complicated.

We had a volatile friendship to say the least. We were great friends, but we would argue like the worst enemies. She was downright rude and rotten when she got angry. I’m no angel myself when provoked, so it turned ugly. We would end up forgiving each other, or at least moving on. We knew more about each other, our relationships, our families… than anyone else. When she was pregnant, I knew just after her husband found out. When my now-husband bought my engagement ring, I told her first. We knew what made each other tick and we knew what the other was going through. We connected mostly through the phone or through email, as life and distance between us made it hard to see one another regularly.

I don’t know exactly when things changed. Perhaps when she adopted a dog. Or maybe it wasn’t until she had her first child. Either way, I wasn’t a priority anymore. And as a child-less friend, that was hard to accept, especially considering our communication was in the car ride home from our respective work or email. We made plans to meet for lunch – her, her husband and her son, my fiancé (at the time) and myself – when she was on Cape Cod for vacation and we were camping with other friends. My then-fiance and I left our group to meet them only to call as the morning went on to find out that they had left the Cape already and were headed home.

I was angry and didn’t say a word to her for over a month. She never apologized but tried to get the email correspondence going again. I eventually gave in, but I was still angry. We had scheduled a phone date one day after work and there was a miscommunication about it. Either I didn’t call or she didn’t call for one reason or another but it didn’t happen. And instead of saying ok, let’s try again next week like normal people, she threw a fit and wrote nasty emails and texts. I wrote back saying I wasn’t going to play this game anymore. Eventually she came around again and said we should make plans to get together shortly. I said ok, let me know when you’re free. She never did. Clearly, I didn’t push the issue. I sent out invites for my bridal shower. She never responded. I had to text her once the RSVP deadline passed and I got a response saying that she was going to be traveling that day and couldn’t make it.

Fine. I got an email a few weeks later – not apologizing for missing the shower – but going on and on about how busy her life was. How she was traveling to my state (but didn’t mention seeing me when she was here) and how much was going on. I wrote a very short reply. Invitations for our wedding went out. Again, no response. Finally, four days after the RSVP deadline, we got her card back. Not coming. No note, no email, no call… no card. Nothing. I unfriended her on Facebook just before the wedding and haven’t spoken to her since. I received an email in August of last year, to my work, saying that she missed me and wondered how I was doing or something like that. I deleted it without responding. I got an email last week through Facebook saying she didn’t expect a response but she missed our friendship. I didn’t respond.

I was her best friend. I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. I spent probably close to $2,000 on her wedding. And that’s how she responds? That’s how she treats me? I couldn’t formulate an email response because it would end up being rude and I wasn’t about to start that again. I don’t have anything to say. If you missed our friendship so much, why aren’t you a better friend? As I write this, I know that my life is better without her in it. And that’s hard and it hurts to say. But there is enough stress and drama in life without someone who brings more of it.