Saturday, July 30, 2016

The One That Got Away.

I have something I wish I didn't. And it isn't an infection. Maybe you've had one of these: a friendship that was pivotal, important, consuming and fulfilling in your life and is now missing. I have one of those. I've had it for nearly 10 years. There have been many friends who are beautiful and amazing and moved out of my life and it has been ok. They were for a time, and what a wonderful time, but because of circumstances the time has passed.  My life is better for having had those people, but it is ok that I move on from them.

But I have one friendship in particular that feels like “the one who got away.” 

This woman, she is a babe. And so smart and sweet and opinionated. She is so different from me. She was the yin to my yang. For about four years I wasn't quite me without her. We were equally slobby. We drank the same liquor – rye and coke as all good farm girls drink starting out. She taught me that milk from cardboard cartons really does taste better than from plastic. When we would get mad or claustrophobic, we would take the other for a walk. A long, fast walk in the winter air, so that at the end of it, our eyelashes were covered in frost and we could hardly feel our legs they were so cold. We worked at McDonalds together. Pierced our belly buttons together – well, not together literally, but at the same time. Lived together. Cooked runny eggs and toast for hangovers. Had our first taste of adulthood together. Our first boyfriends. Our first place. We spent holidays with each other's families. We knew everything about each other. We pushed each other's buttons, made each other cry, drove each other crazy. Loved each other.

But we grew apart, and she moved too far away to casually drive up for an afternoon tea.

To be honest, I think it was all my fault. I think she got away from me because I lost her. When I think back on our friendship I see countless times that she helped me, but it makes me wonder if I ever really helped her.

I was so young. 18. Too young to know anything worthwhile. Or at least too young and inexperienced to apply anything I knew of value. In some ways, we kind of grew up together; those first few baby-adult years away from home. As we were finding ourselves, we were also finding our mates, our voices, our paths, opinions and hearts. When I look back I am amazed at how much I changed between 18 and 22. And since then. I mean, there are core things about my personality that are the same; but I hope I have grown in maturity and grace – something I sorely lacked in those early adult years. 

While I was 18, I also found God. And I am not saying that in a facetious way. I had a legitimate, moving, experience with the Risen Christ and that became a big defining characteristic of my identity – as it still does, even more now. But I was young and wise, and uneducated about things like the baggage churches bring with them, as well as trying to define my own identity and belief system based on almost zero experience outside a farm kid existence.  Well, it was easy to pick things up that should be left on the ground. And it was easy to believe in absolutes. And it was hard to live one way without seeing it as the only way. I let people who weren't any more mature than I was teach me lessons they really knew nothing about. I became somewhat of a zealot, and a hypocritical one at that. It doesn't really lend itself to bff material. 

So there was that. 

Plus I was often a super sarcastic d-bag. I thought I was funny. 

I was also dating my first boyfriend. And, as everybody knows, making out time seriously cuts into friend time. And that boyfriend eventually, during those four years, turned into fiancĂ© and husband. I was married before I graduated from University, and that can really separate a girl from her old crowd. Not because they ostracized me, but because being married has a bunch of responsibilities and expectations that set you apart from the not married crowd. It isn't bad, it just is what it is. 

Finally, there was graduation and the inevitable moving away to find jobs. It was kind of the last wedge that split the entwining of our trees of life apart.

We tried to keep in touch for a bit. Write letters.The occasional visit. But it all dried up too quickly. And I was busy with life, so while I missed her, I didn't pursue her. What a silly girl I was.

Instinctively I knew she shouldn't be one of those friends who drift into and out of life. She should be one of the Ones. There are precious few people who settle into one's soul in life, and they should not be neglected. They should be fought for and pursued. They should be treasured. Kept close in your breast pocket, next to your heart so you can feel the weight of them as a comfort on your way. I didn't know how to do that. The years grew and grew the space until it turned into a broken old sidewalk with weeds sprouting all up in the cracks and the distance was so great and the path so untravelled I didn’t know how to get started down it. 

I think I have a chance to walk it now.

I guess all I really want to say is sorry. Sorry for being a stupid “Christian” and letting that push you away. Sorry for letting other relationships push ours too far to the side. Sorry that I didn't pursue you once I noticed the gap forming. Sorry I didn't write. 

I hope that we can be friends again.

I miss you.


Peace.