best friends
i used to have one. she broke up with me tho, and it broke my heart. ok, maybe a bit melodramatic, but she did strip me of my title of 'best friend', and it hurt. i swear if that's how it feels to break up with a boyfriend, i don't ever want to go thru that again. i'll name her Y. y and i have been friends for many years and a couple of years ago, she met a new guy while she was in a rough spot with her ex-boyfriend and talked to me about it. of course i didn't support the situation because it sounded like she was starting to have feelings for this one guy while dating another, a situation that happened to me when i was dating a boy, but i was the girl that didnt' know anything. essentially she broke up with the boyfriend and starting dating this new guy right after. she'd talk to me about him every once in awhile, but not so much. she'd tell me about dinners they had with his friends, and plans they made with his friends and a couple of hers, but never did these plans include me. i wasn't going to push it because i figured well, if she wanted to separate my friendship with her relationship with him, that was her choice. she'd done that ever since i'd known her. the guy in her life was always played the number one role in her life, i was used playing second fiddle. i wasn't going to fight for her, it wasn't a battle to me. so whenever i called and they were together, i let her go spend time with him. if i called to see she wanted to hang out, but he was over, i let her be with him. she didnt' need me to interfere on their time. she didn't invite me to hang out or anything, and i wasn't going to question it because that's how she'd always been.
several months after they'd been dating, she called me up one night and said, "sarah, do you ever feel like we're not as close as we used to be?" well, it's only natural, these past couple years of college, i hardly see you, or even talk to you. we're both pretty busy, but... "no, not even just a couple of years ago, but ever since we left high school, i've felt like we're just not that close" HUH? that hurt. that really hurt because my thing was, even tho we were in college, and tho we didn't talk everyday, we still had a strong foundation of friendship. we had a strong bond because of our past relationship and thru the years, i thought our friendship grew stronger because i felt like we didn't have to work on it all the time, that we would always have that. i felt like wherever we were in our lives, we'd still be able to reach each other because of that foundation. apparently she didn't feel the same. so thus, the breakup occurred with my best friend of almost 10 years.
the next couple of weeks i was in so much hurt, i felt like a piece of me died without realizing how. i couldn't stop thinking about our conversation, then crying. i didn't understand how y could think that our friendship dimished thru the years, when these couple of years, i received cards and emails from her thanking me for being her best friend, going on trips with her with her ex-boyfriend, taking pictures together, meeting people and introducing each other and our best friends.... what changed? and no matter how much she tried to deny it, it was the relationship with the new guy that changed her perception on our relationship. she felt like i didnt' like him, and wondered why i didn't give him a chance. why i couldn't accept him in her life. and it was easier for her to strip my 'best friend' title than admit that her boyfriend was the cause of the riff in our relationship which made me realize again, even tho i'd known for many years, that her boyfriend was more important than our friendship.
the reason i couldn't accept him in her life was because she never gave me a chance to get to know him. how could i when she never talked to me about their relationship. how could i when they always were too busy to hang out? she never gave me any indication that they even wanted to include me in anything, so how could i feel comfortable inviting myself to hang out?
i also told her once before that i had a love/hate relationship with certain people, and i had one with her. my definition of hate was not the same as what she had thought tho, i feel that there are different levels of hate, and my love/hate relationship was mostly the green eyed monster coming out. she's a very talented and smart girl and i always felt like i could not compare to her, that was my 'hate' and she could not understand that, and that's another reason she stripped me of my title.
the thing about our friendship is that we could eventually talk about these things... a little too late this time, but i didnt' want to lose her as a friend completely. y and i are still friends, but whenever i think about the things she said to me, i still hurt a little inside. we used to talk about asking each other as bridesmaids when the time came, but when i thought about who i wanted as bridesmaids this year, i thought about asking y but decided against it because of the hurt inside of me still. i think that she understands tho, and i won't hold my breath when she gets married.
of course this is a one sided story, but this is my journal, all of my entries are one-sided, obviously. ;) anyways, i bring the subject of best friends because it's been on my mind. not just best friends, but friendships. i've been lucky enough to meet a bunch of great girls and guys these past few years, but never will i want to name any of them 'best friend'. too much pressure. i have a hard time with trust, not only because of the incident with Y, but also because of the many incidents i experienced in middle and high school, even college. i feel like i get screwed when i put too much trust in one person. some friendships fade, no matter how hard you try to hold onto them. it's just the choice of an individual whether you want to take notice and try to hold on, break it off, or just let it fade.
i asked ivy to be my final bridesmaid, and when i asked her, she looked at me in shock and said why? quickly i said that she didnt' have to, but i really wanted her to be part of our wedding party because i really enjoyed the no pressure/not at all fake friendship i had with her. during the past year she'd been very supportive, easy to talk to, and fun to hang out with, so it was a pretty obvious choice in my mind. while talking to my friend cindy about how she chose her bridesmaids, she said that she chose girls in different stages in her life, and i felt that ivy did represent a stage in my life. i could understand the shock tho, because it's not like we were the closest of friends for any long period of time, but again, i enjoy the friendship i have with her, and parkin agreed that ivy was a good choice. plus i had a good time helping her with her wedding, and i know that she'll make it fun planning mine. oh yeah, so she said yes. ;)