Old Stagnant Friendships

I’ve had this friend for many many years. For the sake of the blog and anonymity I’ll call her Megan. Megan is beautiful. She is stunning and has the most amazing positive energy in the world (aka she loves to party). I met her when we were pledging a sorority in 1992.

Really her beauty deserves some more attention. She’s a crowd stopper. A brunette with a cute petite shape AND big boobs. Long, silky, perfectly straight hair. She doesn’t even have to blow dry it to keep from getting fly aways. I’ve never seen her have a fly away or use product! But of course it’s all about her face. Perfect little ski slope nose, high cheekbones, puffy lips, almond shaped brown eyes. It’s totally nauseating!

When I met her twenty years ago I was (and still am) a full-fledged social misfit. I felt awkward in every situation imaginable unless of course I had a few beers in me. Then all my insecurities slid down my throat to be churned with stomach acid, a fine place for my insecurities to end up.

But Megan didn’t see my awkwardness or ugliness; she saw something else. Maybe it was just a warm body that was up for the same party she was. I don’t know, but she offered multiple times to pick me up in her hot red RX-7 so we could go to a party together. And nothing beat showing up a party with her. Nothing. Ever.

So that’s the foundation of our relationship. Nowhere to go but up. Surely a relationship built on such depth and gratitude would be spiritually fulfilling for years, right? Needless to say, I’ve fought with what she meant to me for a long time.

One year I called her on her birthday—this was after knowing her for eleven years—and after talking to her for twenty minutes she says, “Sara, from Raleigh? Oh!”

Granted at that point in our relationship she was living in NYC, living the Sex and the City life, and I was in Raleigh, married and expecting my first child.  But we had lived together for a year, done many road trips together and even a cruise.  You would think she would know what my voice sounded like on the phone. But in some ways this hints at one of the most basic flaws I find in our relationship. She NEVER asks me about me.

My first child is 11. His name is John. It is not short for anything. She still calls him Jonathan. 

Here comes my alcoholic side, so hold on. I could go on and on for pages about how horribly she has treated me over the years. How I’ve never mattered to her or she’s never called me on my birthday. I could make you hate her with a few cutting, highly descript sentences. But, I’m in recovery.

No seriously, I am in recovery and I have played a part in this relationship too. An equal part. I kept calling her after she didn’t recognize my voice after twenty minutes.

Funny this is the part of the writing process where I just took a three-minute facebook break. Because I don’t want to admit that I’m just as much to blame for this flawed relationship as she is. That yes, she upset me three days ago on the phone, but I’ve got to look at my part of it too. This is the part of recovery that is mandatory.

If I don’t look at my recent resentment of her then I stand a real chance of drinking again. For me, I carry resentments very far. They wear out their welcomes. They grow mold. They decompose in my heart.

Megan and I have had a relationship pattern, a pattern I helped create. We all have patterns in relationships but this metaphor of a pattern has been helpful in describing recovery to people. So Megan and I went like this ABAAAX ABAAAX ABAAAX or whatever.  She would talk, I would try and talk about my life, it got back to her and her problems, I would sympathize, play the part of a friend, then walk off and stew because of her not listening to me. Over and over again for years. This is how it’s gone. Well suddenly something has changed—I am sober and that affects everything. It changes every pattern in my life! 

But just because I am experiencing continental divide and mountain-raising earthquakes in my psyche doesn’t mean everyone else in my life got the memo. So Megan and I talked on Tuesday and it bothered me.

I am mad. I am not okay with how the conversation went. Something must change but I don’t know how to change it or correct it! I’m simply aware of it now. I’m aware of the fact that I am not okay with the relationship, that this is not a friendship!  I’m aware and ready to fight for the injustices that have been done to my former self! This is so NOT okay.

Sound the bull-shit horn someone. Gimme a break. It takes two to tango people.

Since I’m discovering boundaries and realizing how I want to be treated, it’s not really her fault. It’s not her fault at all! This is where the program DEMANDS that I “do the work.” I get it, I totally get it. If I don’t I’ll have that damn resentment.

So now what?

Are there modern guidelines for divorcing friends? I want to do something dramatic! Go out with a bang! But no, I can’t, that’s too alcoholic of me. What if, in a year, I care about her again? What if I want to reach out to her and say, how are you? If I burn that bridge in dramatic fashion by writing a snide email, it won’t happen. Ugh. 

This is so not me! The middle road in my mind hasn’t even been discovered. It’s still an undisturbed forest.

Alright, I wrote an innocuous enough email to her this morning. Told her I couldn’t make it to her 40^th blow out bash she’s planning in Miami because we’re saving for a new house. (We’re not really saving for a new house.) That was it.

I think now I should just let it go.

That’s right. Just let it go.  I don’t need to call her.  I can just LET HER BE.

I can still “like” her photos on facebook and she can continue to not “like” mine because she never notices my facebook presence.

In a way, this kind of reaction is so…. Dull….uninteresting. She doesn’t even know that I’m mad! But that’s the thing, what’s the point of making her aware of it? There is none. I can’t change her. I can only change myself and by me NOT doing anything, I am changing. Today that’s going to have to be enough.