Rid of you

I put off writing painful posts, and I have butterflies in my stomach thinking about this.

Before I moved to Omaha I had a really great female friend. Not usual for me at all. I am not really a girly-girl so I've always gotten along with guys much better than girls. So this was good for me. It was great for me. We met at work so between that and hanging out we spent a lot of time together. Joe was living in Omaha already, so it wasn't a case where I had do divide time between my best friend and my boyfriend. For Christmas she essentially redecorated my apartment, and for my birthday she paid to take me with her to Disneyland. Hotel, airfare, park fees, all of it. I got her a life size James Marsters cutout for her birthday. We were those annoying giggly girls at the bar or restaurant that only said half of their sentences since the other already knew what was going to be said.

Then I moved.

Basically, she dumped me. Have you ever had a friend just stop being your friend for no reason? After Junior high that is. I thought that was the type of thing that you outgrew. That when you became an adult you got responsibility and you didn't just stop talking to people. Well, this wonderful person, my best friend who I loved in a totally platonic way just stopped talking to me.

I would call, IM, email, everything. We talked, I told her when I got pregnant, she asked if she could be the godmother, everything your best girl friend says. But I was always the one making these overtures. She would always be glad to hear from me, but she would never return a call, IM, email, anything. The only vague goodbye I got was an unspecific Live Journal post about things being out of sight, out of mind.

When I moved back I made no effort to get back in touch with her and let her know. In a way, she broke my heart. I didn't want to be set up to be hurt like that again. Then the other day I ran into her brother. He asked did she know I was back, etc. He really made it sound like she'd love to hear from me, so I gave him my phone number and new email to pass along. I honestly never expected to hear from her. So when I saw her name on the caller ID I was thrilled.

I felt tentative, and played over a lot of scenarios in my mind, and asked myself numerous times if I could get over what she did to me. I usually don't forgive things like that, it's a defense mechanism I've developed over the years. But I called her back.

We played phone tag for a couple of days, and yesterday I got through to her. It was the most uncomfortable 15 minutes I've spent on the phone since junior high. Go figure. There was no sense that she even wanted to talk to me, even though she'd been the one to call first. I got off the phone and came to the conclusion that it wasn't something that could be recaptured.

And my heart broke a little bit all over again.