Letting Go of A Friend

Last July I made a very tough decision and cut a dear friend out of my life.  A friend that had been my best friend since we were 14.  We knew everything about one another, we told one another every secret, we grew up together, we watched one another go through some tough times, we even had a lot of sex in between break-ups.

If you would have asked anyone that knew us well, when we were younger, everyone would have told you that we would grow up and get married.  But the thing is, him and I knew that we could never get married due to various reasons.  We became a package deal.  A Will & Grace, if you know that one.  You marry me, I have this guy as my best friend.  You date me, you can’t be jealous of my best friend.  It just worked.  He was apart of my family and I, his.

Then we come to last July.  I can give you a million things that led to this moment but this isn’t about those reasons.  It is about the fact that I was exhausted holding our friendship together.  I was tired of him using me and hurting my feelings.  My daughter was tired of it, my Husband was tired of it.  We all really missed the guy that we knew. Slowly, due to all those various reasons, our friendship was dissolving and while I was fighting to hold onto it, he no longer was but he did actually expect me to.  And then I realized I had to let go.

I sent a text after my final straw moment.  I told him he was being a shit friend and I just couldn’t do it anymore.  I knew he knew everything I was referring to without actually saying it.  He didn’t respond until three days later to tell me Happy Birthday and since then it has been radio silence.  13 days after that I found out I was pregnant.  He knows nothing of my butterfly baby to this day.

While this decision has been brutal, I miss him everyday, it has helped. It was worth it.  Until the moment last week when I received the news that his Grandma passed away.  Under other circumstances I would have driven back home in a heartbeat and been there.  But circumstances are different so I called the local florist to have them send an arrangement to the church with a signed card.  By 3pm that day, radio silence was broken for the first time and he sent me a text.  He thanked me for the flowers and told me he was having a tough time with the death.  I wanted to text all the words I know my best friend needed in that moment, but I stopped myself and I hit delete on the long paragraph. I simply said you’re welcome, I’m sorry and left it at that.  My heart broke more.

I don’t know how long this will last.  I hope not forever.  I honestly, for once, don’t know how to put this one into words.  I’ve tried several time since July.  There is something hard about saying you gave up on someone that you should never have to give up on.  Mainly because I would hope that he would never have given up on me.  I have to assume that he will come back around one day when he is ready.  Sometimes we just have to let the ones we love go.