The Girl Without A Face

Well, it seems like my friend list continues to grow. Or maybe my friend list was always more than one and I’m just healing from the bitterness and resentment I felt from being alone when I needed someone. The thing is, I had a very misconstrued idea of what having a friend and being a friend meant. As my one friend who has been with me consistently throughout my breakdown goes through a major life change, I’ve been able to silently set boundaries instead of overextending myself. When she’s backed off our gym routine, or sometimes had me in a rush to get there, I investigated why I was rushing to meet her where she was instead of just saying, “no worries, I’ll see you later.” I have always had a problem with giving too much and then on the flip side of that never asking for anything not wanting to inconvenience anyone. But this isn’t because I’m a martyr of sorts, it’s because I was trained and groomed to be this way in childhood. It is something I’m clumsily unlearning as I go through the healing process. Because there are two truths when this is how you approach friendship, 1) you will always abandon yourself, and 2) you will become bitter and resentful towards the other person. The thing is friendship is not about conditions or expectations. Neither is love. That is something I’ve also had to unlearn since that’s how I grew up.

Yesterday I had my normal morning errands, go to the gym, pick up my prepared meals, go to the grocery store for my son. I knew later in the evening I would be dropping him off at a high school party (doesn’t that in itself sound anxiety inducing as a parent), so my long time friend popped in my head. I am admittedly not typically the one to reach out first, I’m trying to also resolve this within myself. My thought process is, “If they wanted to talk to me they would reach out”, hence why back after my breakdown I went months without talking to or seeing anyone else. Including family. This fact also made me bitter, how could people not anticipate that I needed them? At the time it also made me laugh in a way, “How long could I go without speaking to anyone? A lifetime? Could I just fade away?” I had an inkling people were scared of me because of what happened, there was a time where the only person who reached out outside of working hours was the employee on my team who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. He has sadly since passed away in April of this year. Anyways, the point is, I knew how it felt to be far away from everyone else. And now I’m back, and I’m doing well. I’ve improved myself, healed. I’m like the new and improved version of me. I’ve been saying for awhile that I’m ready to start dipping my toe back in the social scene, but maybe I need to start with what I know. So I called her and left a voice mail, “Hey I don’t know what you’re doing later, but I’ll be alone for a few hours if you want to hang out.” It seems like nothing but it was a huge step for me to be the one to reach out.

About an hour later she called back. Leaving the grocery store herself she said, “I’ve been just keeping to myself lately, but if you just want to come over and hang out you’re more than welcome.” And so I did. We’ve known eachother since we were 17. If I’m doing the math right, that’s 18 years at this point. I’ve seen her go through a heroin addiction, a terribly abusive boyfriend, getting clean, moving away, losing her mom, coming back, etc, etc. She’s seen me go through finding out I was pregnant as a teenager, a couple abusive relationships if I’m honest, custody/child support court battles, losing my grandma, watching every family member move away, my moms crazy conspiracies being drilled in my head for years, losing my mind and coming back, etc, etc. There’s something comforting in that. When we first met so much had already happened in both of our lives, we were not strangers to pain or chaos. I think that’s why we were instantly drawn to eachother. We didn’t have anyone else that could understand the depth. We couldn’t even understand how to deal with it, but maybe we thought the odds were better if there were two of us.

Its interesting because before my breakdown I always worried about her. As if I would get a call one day that I lost her. I never thought she was capable of helping herself. I wanted to save her. Maybe sometimes I wanted to save her more than I wanted to save myself. I think maybe it’s because I could look at her pain objectively, it was easier to spot the breaks, the places that needed fixing. When I tried to look inside it felt like shattered glass surrounding me, I didn’t know where to start and every move I made cut too deep. Now, after almost 2 full years where we’ve rarely seen eachother, I’ve been able to immerse myself in healing my own wounds. I’m no longer attached to saving her, I know I can’t. But you know what? I know shes capable of saving herself. When we talked last night, 4 hours straight without stopping, she seemed like she had made some serious progress. She had gone to therapy for 8 months, but also has done work by herself. I can see the growth in her. It makes me happy to say it. Yes, she still drinks, she still smokes, but I know from first hand experience that all of this takes time to stop. I have confidence that she can fully heal herself. She’s a writer too, we talked a bit about that. I said, “You’re story is inspiring, you should write about that.” And she tries. When she writes its different than when I do, she goes deep inside of the emotion, where for me I write and come out of it feeling lighter.

When I left, I texted her and said it was so great to see her. And you know what she said to me? “You know how you said writing makes you feel lighter? That’s how I feel after I see you.” I smiled the whole way to go pick up my son from his party.

I have to admit, for months I’ve been saying, “my one friend”, or “I only have one friend”, and that just simply isn’t true. It’s my expectations of the friendships that have gotten in the way. When I went through such a difficult time and this friend wasn’t there for me I was extremely angry with her, but in truth it wasn’t her fault. She did the best she could. I’m sure there are more on my list that I’ll be reaching out to. The trouble is sometimes people don’t know what to do or what to say so they say nothing at all. It doesn’t mean there isn’t love or friendship there. And maybe my lesson is that I have to also be involved in reaching out more to make things work. I’m throwing away my messed up rulebook on friendship and starting again brand new.