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In my late twenties and early thirties, I developed a friendship with an adventurous, funny and charismatic woman. We’d known each other for years, but we didn’t really connect till we found ourselves going through our respective divorces. We ended up traveling a lot: to Austria, London, Italy, and Mexico. We enjoyed sharing dreams, being outrageous, and sashaying into fancy dinner parties, where the delight and confidence our friendship gave us seemed to increase our ability to captivate admirers.
The love between us was real, but there were expectations and power dynamics that became challenging as time wore on. Micro-betrayals and hurt feelings accumulated. We saw each other less. She disliked the man I was with, who later became my husband. I resented the judgment and moralizing that seemed to follow when I didn’t comply with one of her requests or heartily agree to join in on one of her plans. Over time, this eroded the pleasure I took in our friendship. I didn’t go to her wedding, and didn’t invite her to mine. We tried to work through our differences, but then, despite our good intentions, some oversight or misunderstanding seemed to re-opened an old wound. She couldn’t forgive me for the ways I’d disappointed her. I was hyper-vigilant, always on the lookout for the next guilt-inducing innuendo or barbed comment.
Friendships are some of the most important relationships we create, over the course of our lives. They’re chosen–not obligatory–unlike many family and work relationships. They’re anchors in a chaotic relational world, and usually, they crystallize around a core of companionship, spontaneity, delight and comfort. Friendships are a happier version of Charon, the mythological boat carrying souls across the river Styx into the underworld. When a partner, family member, boss or colleague–or our own harsh, internal critic–rails against us, or lets us painfully down, friendships remind us of our worthiness. They have the power to transport us out of a desolate, lonely half-life, back into the land of the living.
One afternoon, my adventurous, charismatic friend called me up to talk about something important. She’d been seeing a new therapist and she said that although she couldn’t change her expectations of me and our friendship, she also recognized that I couldn’t meet them. She’d come to realize that being my friend was too painful for her. She didn’t like who she was with me, and she was tired of our dynamic. In her view, it was time for the friendship to end.
“Wow,” I said. “So you’re breaking up with me.”
“Yup, I guess I am,” she responded with a poignant, sad chuckle.
In my world, I’d always thought it best to allow friendships that were no longer working to languish. That way, there was room for them to come back to life in the future. When two friends grow distant, it’s rarely an intentional act of malice or neglect. People’s lives change. We take detours that lead us off the Friendship Highway, but that doesn’t mean we won’t find our way back, for a stretch, somewhere up ahead on our parallel journeys.
Of course, sometimes a languishing friendship dies forever.
“Well,” I said finally, surprised by the tremulousness in my voice. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too,” she said.
It’s a few years later, now, and I still feel hurt and angry about our “break-up.” Sometimes, I’m convinced breaking up with me was a form of payback, a way of re-establishing her superior power in our dynamic. At other times, I recall portions of the crazy adventures we went on together, and the memory of her goofy laughter makes me smile. It fills me with a strange, bittersweet angst—a melancholy feeling laced with loss. I have so much gratitude for everything we lived, together.
Some days, I hope our paths will cross again. Other days, I’m convinced we both needed to take our respective exits off that particular Friendship Highway, and move on for good.
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