i went to a friendsgiving this year with my heart open. turning 30 brought people back into my life that i never would have imagined and i wanted to continue to build old friendships back up. i put my heart on my sleeve and ran with it all full steam ahead and am trying to be the friend, once again, that people deserve. the one that doesn’t end up being forgotten or misunderstood.
it’s so hard to find myself moving forward in life yet constantly needing to replace every fascet and definition of love and friendship. every time i lose a close person to me, i tend to lose a whole version of myself and a whole ecosystem of friends and memories become shrouded in hateful and hurtful truths. it’s happened more times than i can count. i don’t want someone’s skewed impression of me to dictate my relationships with other people. but i know i’m better off alone than wondering what is true. what was real and what was easy to believe at the time?
is it a red flag when you notice it only while reminiscing? there has to be another word for it. it just makes me feel weak. easy to confuse. never missed by them the way i find myself missing “before”...the friendships and adventures and supportive parts of the journey that had nothing to do with the ultimate reason we didn’t work out.
friendship is strange and people float into and out of your peripherals all the time. and yet— the older i become, the smaller this insane world turns out to be. the cycles overlap. people appear and disappear. the feelings and emotions bubble and burst and settle back down again after an exhausting few days of over analyzing. a song, a joke, a movie.. all fucked and dripping with the stain of “before”. maybe this is just my own messed up internal dialogue and everyone else has better coping mechanisms to allow them to truly cut the past off at the neck.
i’ve been on both sides of the block button and there are frankly some people i had never thought i’d have to see again unless i chose to seek them out. and yet. this past weekend, i was thrown entirely off by seeing a face i knew a long long time ago. a face of a friend who wanted more. a face of a friend who left. twice. a face of someone who wanted nothing to do with me and the life i’ve had after that final day— we never spoke again. a person who i considered a true friend until their motives became clearer and clearer with time. someone i didn’t want to hurt who decided to hurt me. lie to me. read this blog without telling me. mock me with a fb status...
i have regrets, of course. i regret not defining things in a more mature way. i regret being the type of girl who let others decide her fate, hanging on the words of men and hoping they would lead me to the truth of a life i could actually see myself living. instead of just being honest and raw, i was scared and anxious and vulnerable. i let my (soon to be realized) awful best friend at the time influence my thoughts through her unwavering sense of superior judgement and unmatched ability to cut me deep with one sweeping statement of what she felt was absolute truth.
i didn’t know how to make a choice that wouldn’t ruin some aspect of my life. i wanted to be selfish while also conveying that i was really hurt.
that friendsgiving brought a person back into my life that i only recently added on instagram to wish them a happy birthday. they just happen to be mutual friends with the person/people i used to know. and there was his face, in nearly every shot. the memories bubbled up. they keep bubbling up. i keep wishing i had a stronger memory of the Bad and a weaker memory of the Good. a tighter grip on how hurt i used to be by their actions and how ultimately better off i am now without the pain they caused. our friendship was once very important to me. and i think seeing him in a such a setting with good friends, having fun with someone i really like, just reminded me of how we could have been if we didn’t push it further. didn’t push each other away.
i’m not waiting for an apology or closure.. i’m just sad. sad about what i’ve been through. sad about not being able to make and keep friends over the years. sad that my selfdoubt escalates any time i think of how easily i’ve been swept aside and forgotten about by people who can still plague my thoughts. i wonder if i’m the only person who feels this way, who is driven into a spiral of weird feelings by a 6 second video clip of a practical stranger in pretty much every sense of the word.
those i knew, those i loved, those that left, those i lost... they are all strangers now. i hardly even recognize myself so I only hope that they’ve grown to be a stronger person and that they don’t suffer from this insanity i feel when it comes to the past and the pain it caused. i’m trying every damn day to be better than i was and maybe that’s enough.
