So this just happened to me. To protect this persons privacy, we will refrain from using specific identifiers… as much as we can. Now to talk about this one, we’re going to have to time travel for a bit. We’re going to have to go back, way back. I’ll have to bring you back to my middle school life complete with middle school me and middle school… We will call her Tess.
Tess and I met in middle school where we shared a class. Tess had a birthday approaching and she told me she thought I would need to get her a card. We never spoke before then. This gives you kind of an idea of her personality. At this point in her life, Tess was a little rude, pushy and well, not everyone’s cup of tea. I personally, found her bluntness and pushiness kind of bold. Middle and high school, we were inseparable. Now this came at a toll, with her not living in the best area of town, coupled with her lack of manners, my parents were less than thrilled. But I mean, what happens when your parents tell you they don’t like someone? You like them even more.
These adolescent years, we spent having sleepovers, fighting over boys, making up dance routines and everything in between. Now to be fair, middle school me was a little bit of a hothead. That, mixed with a best friend who didn’t mind her manners– not always a good combination. But we made it through the test of time and our various obstacles in a friendship. Myself entering college after high school, and her deciding to join the military. We kept in touch via letters and emails. We stood in each others weddings; both of mine. Tess actually stopped speaking to a friend of ours who didn’t come to my wedding. She became a mother. I became a mother. I traveled to visit her and her family.
Little did I know, Tess still saw me as middle school me. All this time gone by, I was still the Serena to her Blair. Which if you are familiar with GOSSIP GIRL then you know.. Blair actually hates her best friend Serena. Now, for me, I guess I never really put two and two together or maybe I just couldn’t see how she felt that we had a relationship like that. So now that you’ve been brought up to speed, we are both married with children. I suffer from pretty bad post partum anxiety and often vent to my friend or look for guidance. I do this because of course, we’ve been friends forever and you should be able to do that. Right?
Wrong. I guess.
Over these last two years, I witnessed Tess become more active in her church. She has dived more into her faith and began forming relationships within said church. Now to each their own. I am not saying there is anything wrong with this or that it relates to the outcome of our friendship. I am however going to be honest about events I noticed surrounding the events that transpired. It was my bonus daughter’s birthday weekend, I was lightheartedly sharing the woman was shaming my feet during a pedicure. Then I had shared that one of the girls at the slumber party was the kid who pushed for more and more. We all know the kind. I thought I was sharing pretty lightheartedly, but boy was I wrong. In looking to “live a new life of gratitude” she didn’t feel as though we were compatible any longer and I seemed to complain about “minor inconveniences.” “I can’t imagine texting someone with every minor inconvenience I’m going through,” is what she said. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t typically speak to my friends that way.
I don’t want to pretend this was our first conversation about the status of our relationship. It wasn’t. Again, over the last two years we had a few conversations in relation to our friendship and what we both wanted from it. We decided we both valued the friendship and wanted to figure out what this rutt was that we were in. A lot of the time, she had some overwhelming feelings about my issues and was internalizing them. Now I can relate to feeling empathy and turning my friend’s problems into my own. I however, cannot relate to putting myself into a situation to an extent that I would feel animosity towards my friend for coming to me.
I hope to always be the friend that my friends feel comfortable coming to. I hope to be the MOM friend that my friends, in their darkest times, feel comfortable coming to me. I feel like I prided myself in being a good, loyal and compassionate friend. I’m not always agreeable and I’m not always the one with the best advice. But I am always the friend who will be there, period. But not this time. After the final text from my once friend, I resonated for a minute. I thought about every conversation over the last few years. I thought about every “minor inconvenience” as she so gracefully put, that I chose to share with my friend, and those words – telling me exactly how she felt about my feelings. I came to the realization, she did me a favor. I didn’t need a friend who secretly hated me. This is way more common than we realize, by the way. I just didn’t realize I had one.
Of course, after I got the “breakup text,” I felt sadness. I mean, I was mourning one of the longest relationships of my life. I felt sadness as I learned I played the villain for so long in someone’s story who was so close to me. But what I also learned, is that a lot of these feelings, are not my business. These are all evidence to some much deeper feelings she is experiencing. Which again, not my business. But of course, hurts nonetheless. So if you’re experiencing something like this. If you’re experiencing the mean friend who has decided to let the friendship go. Maybe it’s been a long time coming and you just couldn’t be the one to pull the trigger. That’s okay. It’s okay for friendships to run their course. It’s okay to not feel a sense of closure, or to feel like you didn’t get a chance to fight for how you felt. Shoot, maybe this person was never meant to be in your life this long and only cheered for you until your success outshined theirs.
I’m here to tell you, it’s okay. Grab yourself an expensive caffeinated beverage. Have a good cry about it. Talk to your friendly, neighborhood therapist. Maybe write a blog post about it. Mourn it in whatever healthy outlet you need. But move on. No one needs that negativity anyway. Xo.