A Series of Observations

For this chapter I am going to recycle some older material from my blog. The topic being one that I contemplate far more often than I would like.

Friendships can be very difficult, increasingly so as we enter adulthood, and our lives are either steadying out or continuing to increase pace. Those changes many a time result in a friendship breakup. Which is perhaps the worst kind in my opinion.

Whether it was due to a big fight, or worse, the quiet fade away until a year passes, and you realize they haven’t texted you once besides your birthday, losing a friend sucks at any stage of life.

From a woman’s perspective, sometimes we’re taught that as much as we are supposed to “need” a man, we also cannot rely on them at all. I don’t believe this narrative entirely but can understand how it might train us to think that men are easily replaceable, or at the very least that we should expect to replace them. 

Expect, being the key word here.

With friends, those are the hits we don’t see coming. From the time of our very first friend, we don’t expect them to leave. Over whatever time we’re given, we share stories, experiences, and many emotions. When a romantic encounter gets in the way, or distance separates us, or anything in between causes a rift, it’s a hard thing to understand how someone so close could so willingly leave that kind of relationship behind without more effort to stay. 

The truth of the matter is, there’s a lot of reasons why this could happen, and usually aren’t important compared to what we are really feeling.

Betrayal, disappointment, sadness, anger…

Friendship breakups are a natural part of navigating our lives and are the one thing that might never get easier to navigate. 

I have lost many friends to many circumstances throughout my life, each one perhaps harder than the next. The only difference across those years and those friends, is who I became afterwards.

Each betrayal for some time became another link in my armor, another reason to keep myself protected against all relationships. As I grew up, this perspective changed. With the self-awareness I gained, I was able to see how I impacted these relationships, and how they impacted me. Those betrayals then became a better reason to trust myself, my instincts, my morals, my values. Each friend that left made me prouder to stand by the ones that stayed, even when I was sad to see them go.

Even now, with the friends that choose their pride over communicating issues, continuously choose poor partners (or even good partners) over equal time spent with constant life companions, or are quick to anger and avoidance, I am grateful for their time in my life. I have become grateful for the betrayals that showed me who they were, and more importantly who I am in response.

As we all know, grief has no timeline, even with every ounce of gratitude in the world. For every situation we lay to rest (or maybe not), there will be equal or greater need to grieve.

Trust me, I don’t think any of us need to be scientists to understand that fact. 

There’s a quote I love, written by Shannon Lee Barry, author of “In the Event This Doesn’t Fall Apart” and poet, where this quote originates from, that I would like to share with you all. 

The quote is this, “…when I turned to face grief, I saw that it was just love in a heavy coat.” 

I discovered this quote during a difficult time of losing my last living grandparent and it helped me to understand and accept my grief throughout all forms of it. 

A friend breakup is a living death, a blow to all fronts, and a traumatizing heartbreak. To lose those we platonically love, is to lose an entire life’s worth of love in an instant. Despite the reasons for the relationship to end, I think that it is our love that we will always grieve the most. For that was shared only with them and won’t make sense to give to another. For the versions of ourselves who knew them so well, and them us, because in the event we meet them again, it won’t be as those people. 

Death is change, whether literal or not, and we are destined to never be the same after any love. Be it romantic, platonic, familial, or otherwise. 

Perhaps this seems like a road with no end, these experiences, nor will I tell you what you should or shouldn’t do in these situations. These things aren’t always about action, but I hope that you know I understand. 

I understand that people leave, I might even understand why.

I understand how this will inevitably change every molecule of my being, and in time I might even understand why.

I understand that as I sit here, brokenhearted, I can feel the heavy coat of the love I shared wrapped warmly around me, and I understand it might not be the proper season for it. 

I can admire it from a distance, or find that it doesn’t fit me anymore, and I understand it is because I have grown out of it. 

I am fortunate for those coats that kept me warm in the right seasons, I am fortunate to have grown with or beyond those now heavy coats, and I am fortunate to have had such an opportunity to enjoy them.

When it comes to friends, we operate differently than we might in other relationships. We require different things from different friends, and them from us, but the important thing is understanding when the dynamic has shifted.

When their effort does not match your own, when their priorities shift and their actions with it. Most importantly when you see they are not being the friend you need and deserve, which is often something we see too late.

I understand, I really do.

A conversation would be the best advice, but what I’ve also come to learn is that some people are simply incapable or unwilling to have a conversation with. They might be too wrapped up in their own world to relate to yours or are not emotionally mature enough to handle it. If that is the case, they are not a friend worth having anyways.

I also believe that sometimes there is a statute of limitations on big conversations like that, because they either accumulate into something huge and it’s best to take care of it when its more manageable, or it becomes entirely irrelevant.

What doesn’t have a timeline is our emotions. If we find ourselves repeatedly feeling a certain way about a relationship of ours, but don’t believe that we’ll find support in that person if we try to talk to them, I suggest writing a fake letter to them.

I surely have recommended this before, but if we find that the relationship is not worth saving and our emotions won’t quit, it’s more likely that they just need a place to go.

I have found it so beneficial to write out every hurt, every thought, every accusation (no matter how horrible or warranted), because it gives me an opportunity to not only see exactly how I feel and why, but another opportunity to determine how much effort it is worth.

You might find that a fake letter will make your heavy coats easier to bear.

More frequently given advice, though often not happily received, would be to Zoom Out and give it all time.

For time heals all wounds, or at least gives us the perspective to care about them less.