Outside of my family the person I see most is someone I haven’t spoken to in nine years. We don’t live in the same state anymore, but when I am in a certain state of mind he visits me, sometimes helpful, sometimes mocking, always too slippery to hold on to.
For the first handful of years after our break up I nursed my pain. I was energized by the hot spike of indignation I felt when I told our story and his ultimate betrayal. I would tease out the ways in which he was wrong, the ways he failed to appreciate the intimacy of our relationship, choosing business over friendship in the most literal way.
I should not have been surprised. Through my divorce, my father’s death, my weekends spent with unfamiliar men on unfamiliar drugs he was my Monday morning. We would meet for breakfast and he would tell me matter of factly that my latest hook up was married. He knew everyone in town, but would only vet people for me after the fact, informer rather than protector. We would have our coffee refilled and transition from my craziness to his business. He would flip back a page of one of his endless loop of list notebook and we would track the to dos that had to be carried over from pages ago. I would try to assign them psychological significance and he would laugh. With him things were systematic not symptomatic.
[Tweet theme=”basic-white”]He was the constant in the equation of my life that I found too difficult to solve.[/Tweet] He was the constant in the equation of my life that I found too difficult to solve.
With time and distance from my tumult I became more comfortable in my own head, no longer using men or hallucinogens to muddy my mind. I committed to therapy and legal drugs. I slept more. I began to recognize real numbers. I healed myself with eight hours of sleep, 100mg of antidepressant, four hours of yoga, two hours alone each day. Despite my growing time alone there was still lunch and breakfast, investing and house renovation recommendations. As we both entered committed relationships the threads from which our friendship was woven began to loosen. We had gotten into business together years ago when he was pragmatic and I was emotional. Now the sum of our relationship was rental income minus repair cost, multiplied by hours spent on management plus number of excuses we gave each other as our lives moved on and away from each other.
When I would get his text reading “lunch?” I was a town or two away, at the grocery store. When I made it into town and asked to meet for breakfast he was already in our spot with someone else. Years later I know how natural this is. I don’t know exactly the role I played for him…but I had found a new constant in my husband, and new mysteries in my kids. I was ready to flip the pages of my own to do lists. Despite this I was hurt and angry. As we dissolved our business partnership he was unemotional. I faulted him for this despite it being the very quality that had drawn me to him in the first place. I had expected him to act the way I would have…the fact that he was simply himself was disproportionately crushing.
Like most grudges this one was not really about the object of my upset.
When I am thoughtful, when I am kind, I know the break up was never with him. Our friendship had played the exact role it should have for our life stages. Our friendship was my one point of pride in a time of life I would rather forget. The person I was really angry at was myself. That young twenties version of me, with her highs and lows and drugs and sex and business and getting into other people’s business. I never really said goodbye. I never really told her why we were finished.
So I will now.
Thank you for the time you gave me away from time. I am not simply embarrassed by my lost weekends and sleepless nights. I needed them to stop the incessant measuring my life and ambitions that had been my nagging partner since childhood. I stopped being good and lived to tell the tale. I finally lost control and came out the otherside. Today I am less fearful and more steady. After a decade bouncing between tears and going on a tear I am finally settled down, literally and figuratively. I couldn’t have been this person without being her for a while. And I probably couldn’t have been her without the constant of my Monday morning friend.
It took a decade but I can look back at both of you and say thank you. And almost all the time I mean it.
Testing this comment.
Awesome piece my friend. Very deep and insightful. Relationships help mold us, help us become who we are. Good or bad they all serve a purpose.
Thanks. After several years I think I am ready to truly integrate that perspective.
These things do take time, that’s for sure.
I like that you’ve taken time to understand the then-you, and put her into perspective. A fascinating read, thank you for writing it.
Wow. It is interesting how our relationships and looking at ourselves through the eyes of another can teach us who we really are.
I know…mirrors and all.
Wonderful read Anna! 🙂
Thanks!
Glad you are settled now. It takes time to find peace.
Great that you were able to see the value in how you were back then and to forgive and through that to also forgive your friend. I found it interesting that you are able to see why you needed the lost weekends “to stop the incessant measuring my life and ambitions that had been my nagging partner since childhood.” I had lost weekends in my late teens and early twenties too (to drink rather than drugs) and felt a lot of shame and self-hatred before eventually coming to a similar conclusion to yours.
Thanks for joining in #1000Speak!
Thanks for reading…and sharing a bit of your past as well.
What an interesting perspective – I like to look back at where I was – so I can see how far I’ve come.
After reading your post, I am realising how cathartic and therapeutic writing this forgiveness post has been for so many of us. That it’s been more about process raw emotions and difficult perspectives perhaps not for the first time but perhaps for the first time from a perspective of true forgiveness rather than anger and blame. I can see that for so many of us it has been a heart-lived and felt process.
I admire you for letting go with that tie with your past and realising you had all the ingredients to move forward in yourself and your new life. That can take a lot of courage, although when the time is right, I’ve noticed many of my friends sail forward.
Speaking of my own journey, the hardest part in being in the hole and not knowing what lies ahead and not knowing you will come out okay.
xx Rowena
I completely agree with all
Of this!
It’s a great thing when we can look back at our less-well-adjusted selves and realize that we would;t be who we are without them.
Looking back on ourselves and friendship helps us move forward. You are now obviously a different person who is at peace with herself. It is good that you aren’t mourning the loss of the friendship but the richness the friendship gave you.
Well said!
I love your openness in sharing who you were and the process of the ‘break up’ with the old you. Interesting post and how a friendship that was important at the time helped you through it.
Thanks.
It’s interesting to see how our life journey spins out and who is with us for different stages along the way. I hope he gets to read this and can smile.
I would bet not. But that is ok.
None of it is random. None of it. I loved this on so many levels and I flipped it into my Flipboard.
Thanks for sharing.
It takes courage and distance sometimes to say no to someone who once meant a lot. You’ve changed. Maybe he hasn’t. You chose the right thing, to go forward.
I think so. It sounds as if you have made a similar choice at some point.
I loved this. & I really like the idea that a period of ‘getting it wrong’ might be a necessary break from trying so hard to be in control and perfect, rather than failure.