No more hour-long phone calls. Time’s up on sharing our honest feelings and listening to each other. A cuppa together, but a memory. And I’ll likely never again have that welcome when I come to her door; the heartfelt hug she would insist on giving shy me, and crazy affection from her dog too. A childhood friend has, as the slang goes, left the building. The pain of a close friendship ending is one of the worst troubles we can experience. And sometimes after a break-up, there’s a myriad of exhausting internal questions which could have multiple answers and yet no absolutes. Was it something I said or did or was it about who I am? Was our friendship built on the type of earth that can’t withstand heavy rain and therefore at some point destined to slide away? Now she’s not here and yet she’s out there, doing her life, perhaps never knowing how deeply sad I feel.
It happened some months ago. Maybe I could see it coming. An unexpected outburst that I wasn’t giving her enough attention, just a couple of days after I made my usual weekly visit to her home. Calls unanswered, messages that she’ll call me back – yeah right. She’d probably have a different viewpoint on how things ended, but as she was my ‘bestie’ I was literally noting every lack of effort she made to keep in touch and how on my birthday, two days after I threw a party, she unexpectedly rang my doorbell and then as we sat at a nearby café she talked to me like I was being grilled.
We could count on each other for unconditional support and loyalty. No matter what others would say or do, we believed in each other. We didn’t have to go out for dinner or to an event to enjoy each other’s company – although we did that a lot too. Often it was enough just to sit in the passenger seat as she drove around town, doing errands, me waiting in the car in case a warden passed by. Now there’s the moments that constantly remind me of what we shared. Little things like a piece of clothing that she found for me after we went through TK Maxx rails together; and the more crushing losses – like no longer seeing her children who I’ve watched grow from babies to teenagers.
We must carry on when a friendship ends. At the least there’s work obligations, bills to pay. We can help ourselves by sharing our grief with someone, to a therapist if you can afford one, or we can have catharsis by writing in a journal or talking aloud to nobody at home. Another solution is to keep busy – no time to dwell on heartache! But we can’t be busy all the time, and what about those minutes in bed before we fall asleep, and how on waking we’re in a more instinctive, less controlled state?
I feel I’m responsible for my pain. After all, I put all my eggs in one basket. Her care was so sustaining that I didn’t nurture any other friendships to such depth. I go out and about with other mates, but we can’t just be together, and we don’t have the history. Truth is sometimes I’m lonely and that brings feelings of not being comfortable with myself and an overwhelming frustration which leads me to wish that like a dog I once had – I could curl up in a burrowed hole in the sand, close my eyes and stop thinking about what happened.
I have my ‘faithfulls’ which help to keep me calm and carry on. Unequivocally music comes to the rescue. Like many people, I too swear by grateful lists and remembering those worse off than me. And then there’s being entertained, especially by comedy, and amusing myself like painting or at the least sewing. Yet none of these things are people (or animals) that I can have up close and in my space.
A few days ago, what with the sun out between downpours, I took a walk in my building’s communal garden. As I ventured behind some trees to what might be called the garden’s wasteland, I found an abandoned plant in a pot lying on its side. Although its soil was so dry as to feel like dust, this 70cm long plant was covered in shiny green leaves. I thought to leave it standing upright on a grassy patch near the bins so it could get rained on. But, in a what the heck moment, I decided to take it home. Leaving it in the kitchen so I could give it slow yet continuous watering, I’ve now faced this plant so many times and, strange though it may seem, it’s giving me abundant comfort. In caring for it, I too am being cared for. And for now, this is good enough.
