I'm not going to go into any long backstory here, but I ended a friendship a couple of months ago with someone I really care about. He was one of my best friends, actually, at one point, but the friendship had been dying a long, painful, gasping fish-out-of-water death for the last 2 years. I finally reached the point where it hurt me too much to go on - trying to maintain an essentially one-sided friendship was making me crazysad and I knew that for my own sake I had to let it go. It would probably have hurt less if I felt like he had noticed that I wasn't his friend anymore *insert bitter laugh here*
I've been doing a pretty good job over the past couple of months of keeping to that decision. I haven't called him, haven't written him, haven't made any kind of contact whatsoever. I feel his absence like a hole in my life every day, which sucks balls, but I' ve been strong and remembered every day why he doesn't deserve my attention anymore.
Today, I found out that R's life has taken a seriously shitty turn. He wasn't having the best time when I decided to end our relationship - his dad had been in a bad car wreck, his mother-in-law had died, his crazy (literally) wife was in the middle of a very difficult, very high-risk accidental prenancy, and he was facing the fact that he was going to be a dad despite the fact that he never expected or wanted children. Under ordinary circumstances I would never have abandoned a friend in that position, but he made it pretty clear he didn't care whether I was his friend or not and I had to do what was best for myself, not him. (Not a bit of guilt there, no siree bob)
Well, apparently, Karma, who was already biting his ass pretty hard, wasn't done with the chewing. His best friend told me today that R lost his job a couple of weeks ago, and hasn't been able to find another one yet. Which means that he lost his truck too (it was a company vehicle), so his family is down to one car, and that his wife is almost certainly being a screeching harpy and in full fledged panic mode (what with having lost the only income in the family). R apparently has stopped talking to friends and is in shut-down mode, which freaks me out given what an incredibly social animal he is. I imagine that he is at a serious low point in his life, and it breaks my heart.
Because, see, no matter how shitty he treated me, no matter how toxic that relationship was for me at the end, I still love him and hurt for him. Like my friend Ne said today, you don't stop caring about someone just because you can't have them in your life anymore. Every fiber of my being is screaming for me to call him, to write him, to let him know that he is loved and that I'm there if he needs anything - I ache to do what I would do for any of my friends who was having a hard time.
And I can't. I just can't. Because he really is toxic to me, because he shreds my heart every time he gives me a taste of his friendship and then takes it away, because I have to put my own well-being first. My head reminds me off all the times that he knew I was having a hard time and didn't call me, all the times he lied about his feelings for me not having changed, all of the tears that I've cried because of him, and how shitty talking to him inevitably makes me feel. My head reminds me that my friendship is a special and precious gift to those I love, and that by his own actions, his own choices, he does not deserve it.
My head reminds me of all of this...and still my heart breaks.
Thank god tonight is Girls' Night, and I can spend it with women who love and value me. I am counting the minutes until I can collapse in their arms and weep...for him, for me, for friendship lost and the general shittiness of life.
May the Light hold you and yours, R, even though I can't.
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