Some mornings I wake up mourning. I never know why. I think that I am past this; I don’t miss you anymore. And then I wake up one morning—and maybe I slept in later than I expected, or maybe I had a weirdish dream that lingers in my mind, or maybe nothing happens really. I think of you. That’s all. And then I check your Facebook page to see if there are any new photos to make me jealous of you being happy with other people whom you love.
And then I wonder again what I did wrong and why, and what I could have done differently, or if there was nothing I could have done. It takes me a long time to wonder about that. I never come up with an answer.
I shame myself for being the needy one. It’s so foolish to be the friend who wasn’t wanted. So demeaning somehow to be that person coming toward you with need in her eye (and you look around wondering how to be polite and not hurt her feelings and still extricate yourself as quickly as possible). I hate that I’m that person no one ever wants to be—all heavy with misplaced wanting, overbearing with breath and emotion. Then I tell myself, “I am that person. Admit it. Embrace it. Move on.” We are all of us needy sometimes.
When I mourned my friend who died, it was a clean mourning. She was old, and she needed to go. For her sake and for my sake, I was happy she could. It was hard to watch her hurt. When I mourned her afterward, I missed her, but there was always a touch of rightness in my sadness. She died loving me. I was the last person she talked to before she went. She knew that I loved her.
You I mourn, and there is no place for my mourning. When it is the friendship—not the person—who has died, there is no place to place the sadness. No one to ask how I am doing, no one to send a condolence card. “It’s like you had a funeral, and no one else showed up,” Ivan told me. Yes, that’s it exactly. How did he know?
So many people told me so many times our friendship wasn’t working, but I never listened. I thought if I held on long enough and hard enough—surely, surely love would win. Dad finally got impatient—after I’d gone crying to Mom multiple times over something you said—and reamed me out. He said afterward he was sorry, and he’d done it because he was afraid I was never going to quit.
But Ivan asked me how I was doing. He held me and loved me and made a place for my tears. I gained from him the courage to set boundaries for our friendship. I learned from him it mattered if you said something hurtful to me—mattered because I matter. It wasn’t something to overlook. I learned from him what everyone else had tried to teach me—but I learned it from him because he never told me I was wrong and sat beside me hours while I cried.
Some mornings I wake up mourning. I miss you still. I wonder if in three years that will change. Maybe I will have a child, or two children, and barely think of you at all. I tell myself sometimes—it gives me hope—that in three years, maybe we can try again to make a friendship. Because in three years you will have changed, and I will have changed, and maybe I won’t care so much and you will care a little more. That is what it takes—equal footing, equal need—to make a friendship.
You taught me a lot. You told me that people are children, just wanting praise. You told me it’s not one decision that matters—it’s the direction I choose. You taught me that friendship takes two and that love does not always mean holding on. I know now that I should have honored your wish the first time you told me you wanted out of our friendship—that I harmed us both by digging in—but if I had it to do over again, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I would fight for you still, until I was absolutely certain I couldn’t make it work. Next time, though, I would let go sooner, out of respect to both of us.
I don’t blame you for the loss of our friendship. You are what you are. You cannot be what you’re not. I don’t blame me, either—not usually. But I write about it in order to give it meaning and to help me go on. I hope you don’t mind.
Love—in the freer way I am learning—Luci
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Feature photo by Elizabeth Miller.
Wow! This is so beautifully vulnerable! I get it all to well… It sounds like your in a good place!! Blessings and love! Rhoda
Lucinda, I wish I were there to offer my shoulder to cry on. Please know I will be praying for you.
Thank you, Regina. I appreciate those prayers. Know that I am in a better place now, emotionally, than I have been for a very long time. Writing helps me process and heal.
My husband often asks me, “How is your E. Q?” meaning my emotional quotient. Though he a rock emotionally, he is in touch with his feelings more than most men, possibly because he is an artist. I regard him as my rock as I cling to the Rock of Ages, who offers balm in the Psalms.
This has been a year of huge changes for you: rural to urban, teacher to student, single to being engaged. No wonder you are a muddle. You will get through this in time, Luci! Of that I am sure!
O wounded heart I totally hear you and because of that my ‘heart’ goes out to you. I’m also so much like this when it comes to friendships and relationships, but then again I’m artistic and I’ve noticed people that are this way do tend to ‘feel’ very deeply. I would give you a hug and a listening ear, but I’m too far away. I’m so thankful you have Ivan – what a blessing !! Some people seem to be able to let go and move on very quickly in these sort of situations, but me, I can be stuck for years!! – no kidding. I hope as I age that I will recover faster, with the Lord’s help and patience with myself, plus a good talking too when I need it. Bless you. ~ Linda
Thank you, Linda. I can tell that you “get” it. Sometimes I think I over-dramatize things. I don’t mean to; it’s just my in-built perspective. So then I relax and give myself permission to feel deeply, since that’s the only way I am able to deal with my emotions in a healing and growing way..
I have puzzled too, when friends decide that they have moved on, and that maybe I wouldn’t approve of their changes in life. While I’m left quietly wishing they would understand I would be pleased to still be their friend, and would love to somehow communicate that in many ways, I have matured and changed too, even if it is in my heart. And that if I could share my story with them, it might not be all that different from their own… True friends that are always there are a great gift. Top on that list is Jesus, right? :)
Jesus is Always. Yes. And I get the thing about wishing to communicate that you are not so different, really, in spite of outward, perhaps more conservative appearance, and that you do and could relate on so many levels. But that is so HARD to communicate sometimes.
Oh, Luci. I didn’t realize how much I was missing your writing from the heart. There is so much in the last 2 posts that resonates deeply with my own feelings.
I’m glad. :)
I lost a friend, too, about 3 years ago, in a way that deeply wounded both of us. Sometimes I still wonder whether there is hope of restoration and whether she will ever forgive me. What troubles me most, is that I betrayed her. Never mind that I tried hard to avoid it and that the last thing I wanted to do was cause more wounds. It still happened. And I still grieve sometimes.
How wise Ivan was, to listen and allow you to make your own call.
I am sorry for your loss. I understand your grief and feelings of self blame. I think when we lose something we tend to blame ourselves, whether or not it was actually our fault. To punish ourselves somehow for the pain?
I am learning a lot from Ivan about how to help other people deal with their issues, should I ever be needed. A lot of it involves not having too many quick answers and ready solutions, and just being willing to listen. :) That’s something my mom has taught me, too.