The most amazing thing happened about a month ago. My friend's children had the lead parts in their elementary school production of Peter Pan. So Justin and I decided to load up the girls in the van and go support our friends in their big moment.
While I was there something completely bizarre, and wonderful, and totally unexpected happened. I ran into my very best childhood friend, whom I had lost touch with over the years. I had thought she was still living in Denmark and then suddenly there she was, standing in front of me in a small school gym in my quiet, little town.
Long story short, she wasn't in Denmark, she had moved back to Atlanta after over a decade away. She was there to see her nephew, who happened to go to the same school and was in the same production as my other friend's children. We had lost touch because of distance, because of life, because of me; because when I feel like I've hurt someone, even if it's not on purpose, I don't just step back, I full on retreat.
Such was the case with this friendship. I had pinpointed the estrangement to an e-mail that I had sent her years ago, commenting on how much our lives had changed. The purpose of my email was well-intentioned, and I had hoped to convey to her that no matter where she went, or what she did, or who she became, she would always be so dear to me. Dear to me because my memories of her were so very good. There are so many parts of my growing up years, particularly my teenage years, that I have compartmentalized and forgotten, or care not to remember. But my years with her are some of my most precious. When childhood was it's best. When I felt the most loved, the most understood, the most grounded.
When I penned that e-mail, I was at a very raw stage of life though, trying to rebuild after the carpet had been pulled out from underneath me....again. The one-dimensional view from social-media and blogs had her life pegged as charmed, glossy, and perfect in my eyes. I didn't know how to relate. At that point I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor and praying I could scrape together enough food to make my kids' lunches the next day. I just yearned from all that perfection to just have a day with her the way I remembered her. Someone I could just be my weird, awkward, un-glossy self with.
Something that I must have said must have not translated well though, because I never received a response. Maybe she thought I was criticizing her for changing? For becoming someone who seemed different? I don't know. My way of licking my wounds was the same way it has been with every other failed friendship I've had in life... because I've had a few. It seems like every decade of my life has been punctuated with friends that abandon me. And it seems that there has been a common denominator in all those relationships... me. So I must be the problem.
I've carried the weight on my heart for years that I'm the girl no one ever stuck around for. No one fights for. There must be something about me that is inherently not good enough. So, I disappear. I disappear because rejection hurts; and I disappear because I never want to hurt anyone. Sometimes the surest way to not hurt people is to not open yourselves to them. It's warped, but somehow over the years I've convinced myself that it's a logical solution to the fear of being less than what people need.
Suddenly though, this failed relationship that was so important to me, but that I was so scared of, was standing right in front of me. With nowhere to hide, there was nothing to do but swallow my fear, walk up to her, give her a big hug, and tell her how good it was to see her. Because it was.
I gave her my number before leaving and told her to text me if she wanted to reconnect. On the way home Justin asked if I thought she'd call? I told him I didn't know, but that I put myself out there, even when I was scared, and that's all I could do.
She texted me about a week ago, after getting through the holidays and moving into her house, and invited me to grab a smoothie with her and catch up. I thankfully agreed and walked through a door this morning not knowing what to expect.
We talked for two and a half hours, and probably could have doubled it if we didn't have lives waiting for us outside the rustic walls of that corner coffee shop. I've really spent the last couple of years kind of isolating myself. As I talked to Justin on the phone as I drove home, I told him how good it felt to just talk to someone who knew me. Who knew my backstory. Who has known me since I was six years old. When life was simple and I wasn't yet battered by some of the hurts of life.
Here we were, thirty years later, and I could still just talk to her. I didn't have to put on a face, or only talk about the good parts of my life. I could be real. And that's what I so desperately needed; to just be real.
It made me sad to think that I had convinced myself that being lonely was safe. Because in my isolation I have cheated myself out of connection. I don't care how old you are, how introverted you are, what battle wounds you carry from relationships, we all need to feel connected. And it's worth the fight, it's worth the time, it's worth the fear.
I have some work to do, and I know old patterns, old thoughts, and old lies that I've told myself aren't going to disappear over night. Connection takes bravery and courage and vulnerability, and all those things are hard. But I can feel myself being strong enough to do hard things... and I can't even begin to tell you how good that feels.
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