Friendships Past

The past few days an ongoing issue has been bothering me more than usual for some reason. Well not for some reason, implying I don't know what that reason is. It's more like for reasons I understand but don't quite know why I am thinking about them at this point in time.

Over the last year or so I have seen two of my very closest friendships go up in smoke. Literally just disappear for no apparent reason that I can see. Now I have always been a believer that friends come and go, people are in your life for a season and a reason, blah blah blah. But these two friendships in particular I kind of felt were exempt from that rule.

The first was with someone who is/was one of my oldest friends. No, not old as in age, but old in how long we have been close friends. He was basically the other brother I never wanted. We looked out for each other in high school, helping one another navigate those crazy times. We swapped stories about who did what first through college as we started to explore the world away from our parents as pseudo adults. And we stayed close despite being across the country and on several occasions across the world from one another. We wrote letters and made short expensive phone calls, we were family. He attended holidays at my house when he was on the rocks with his family and was there with him those same holidays when he made the required drop by to his own family get together's. I sat with him at his sisters wedding, he held my hand while I cried over canceling my own wedding. He was the one who drove 3 hours in the REALLY early morning hours to bring me junk food for breakfast and force me out of bed after learning my parents were separating.

Clearly we have a long and involved history.

But as time moved on it seemed more and more like he didn't understand me like he used to. And then him answering my calls became more infrequent. Then it became non existent. The clincher was the birth of my son. This man has known how badly I wanted children the entire time he has known me. He knew how I would cry over the thought of not having my own if I didn't find the right relationship to have them in. He more than anyone always told me what a wonderful mom I would be and how he couldn't wait to be someones "uncle". So when I didn't get an RSVP for my baby shower (which he has deemed EXTREMELY important to him and the only thing that could keep him away was a work emergency) I got irritated. And then I chalked it up to preggo hormones. Yet, as my due date approached and I still didn't hear from him, I really began to question our friendship. He had called himself my best friend for a looooong time. Wouldn't you cross oceans to help celebrate the birth of your best friends first child? I know I would! If it had been at all possible for me to get to California in time to be there with Jami when Riley was born I would have done it in a heartbeat. I'm still sad I missed it.

Wyatt is now 5 months old, and this person who for so many years was my best friend has yet to meet him. He has only seen the few pictures that I sent him on the holidays from my cell phone. Pictures that were sent to pretty much everyone I knew. I had dinner with a mutual friend a couple days ago and one of her very first questions was "Have you talked to Tom lately?" And the second she saw the look on my face she knew the answer. I had to tell her that the last time I even kind of spoke to him was at Christmas, when he sent me a very canned text after receiving my picture of Wyatt and I. She was flabbergasted. In fact she let me know she has specifically asked him when he was in town recently if he was going to see us and his answer was "Of course!"

So what the heck do you do with all that? This person had been a huge part of my like for 13 years. Nearly half my life. And suddenly and without explanation they decide not to be part of it any more. There is not much else that will make you wonder what is wrong with you like that will.

The loss of the other important relationship kind of happened in tandem. It was again someone that I have/had been close to for a long time, who suddenly started acting like she was so much better than myself and the other girls in our little group. We had banded together while working at the same store during my college years. And even after the closing of the store we stayed tight. We were always there through each crisis, we all took turns comforting and supporting the one in need. These three women became my sisters. I didn't talk to them every day all the time, but when we needed each other we were there, no questions asked. And again suddenly we weren't good enough.

I knew she was having issues with another friend, but that didn't stop me from trying to maintain my friendship with her. But it got very strange and strained after I got pregnant. She seemed happy for me, she said happy things, she even took a few cute pictures of me after I had started to show a little bit. I was actually kind of worried, because she had the bad luck of having trouble getting pregnant, and finally she and her husband decided to adopt an amazing little girl. At the time they were even talking about maybe adopting a second child. So I decided not to worry about it and take what she said at face value. Again the returning of phone calls stopped and the times we did talk she never asked how I was or how the baby was. She hardly even told me anything personal about her own life. She too skipped out on my baby shower with only a facebook RSVP. Which is fine for most people, but not for someone you consider your sister. The final straw was knowing she opted out of coming to visit Wyatt and me in the hospital after he was born. Then hearing it was because that "just isn't the time to show up and pretend everything is ok." If you ask me, that is the perfect time. Make up and clear the slate over the celebration of a new life.

So I guess my big question now is how do I deal with this. How do I not get annoyed when I hear about these people from people who are still friends with both of us. How do I forgive people who I feel betrayed me in a very big way. I have done all the little things. I'm honestly not even that sad about it anymore. I have bigger and more important things to worry about. Maybe I'm just looking for a little closure...like after a bad breakup. I want to know that it's not my fault.