Of course day 2 of my little adventure would bring nitty gritty. Why would it not? I have a friend. We were best friends for years, and then life got in the way. When I met her, I thought she was the most glamorous thing I’d ever encountered. Its funny what looks glamorous when you’re in sixth grade. One of my earliest memories was her birthday party, we rode around town in a limo, to a restaurant, the beach, and then got to spend the night at, what appeared to me at the time, a castle!
Her life turned out to be anything but glamorous, but I loved her fiercely. I was convinced at 13 that I could save her, and still at 14, 15, 16, and 17. Your super hero powers start to wear off a little bit as you get older, then you can lose them all together, only to rediscover you’re still a super hero when you have kids. Life can be cool like that.
The two of us, we were firecrackers. Wound pretty tight, a little crazy, not fully in touch with reality, but MAN did we have fun! Until she started leaving. Months at a time, she would leave to ‘get well’, the first time I thought maybe I could go with her if I lost enough weight, but I couldn’t stay committed to the goal. I didn’t realize how sick my friend was… I just thought she was really committed… I wanted to be as committed as her. I’m really glad I’m not 13 anymore. When she would come back, from what I thought was camp, she was ‘better’ and we’d go right back to our normal shenanigans and never talk about ‘camp’. I was jealous of the friends she made there, and that I didn’t get to go.
The comings & goings became more frequent. The shenanigans a little more real and a lot more dangerous. I realized how sick she was. I got scared.
So what does this have to do with today?
Over the course of the years, on random occasions, I would hear from my friend. She would share the absolute insanity of her life, the old feelings of wanting to save her would resurface, and my heart would break as it had grown in the knowledge that I couldn’t. I don’t hear directly from her anymore, or at least I haven’t in the last couple years, but through the wonderful advances in technology I’d watch the insanity unfold on the pages of Facebook. Some posts would make me smile, seeing the crazy fun girl up to old antics, some would make me cringe as she poured herself into another guy not worthy of her sweet heart, and some would make my heart break again, as she wrote about believing the world had given up on her. But I would say nothing. I felt like I had said it all, more times than I could count.
She posted today (or at least I read it today)… and again I couldn’t comment. I mean in all seriousness… look at this post, I would have seriously exhausted the capabilities of Facebook.
How do you apologize for being human? Do you? I can see this from her point of view, it bears a striking resemblance to me giving up on her. Self-preservation does contain more than half of the word selfish…. But then I just get mad… and that’s how I know I still love her…. you don’t get angry with people you don’t care about. You usually don’t even think about people you don’t care about… but I think about her, and I get mad at her for being selfish… for not listening to the people who love her, for not believing that we do, for making choices that could end up killing her…. And so I don’t say anything…. Because when you haven’t talked to someone in 2 years, yelling at them is likely not the most polite way to say hello.
I’m a firm believer in the statement “life is what you make of it”. I acknowledge some are starting from a rather large deficit…. but I also believe no matter where you are, its a matter of the NEXT choice you’ll make and the ones that come after that. Even if the first choice is simply agreeing that you might have a problem bigger than you can handle on your own… and then choosing everyday to set aside what you think, because you’ve discovered your thoughts might be whats hurting you most. Choosing to listen to those that bring light into your life, that tell you the truth even when it hurts, that love you enough to fight with you. Choose to accept reality and to dig in and get to work on making it better… it doesn’t happen over night and no one can do it for you, but we can cheer you on. Personal experience can attest, the more good choices you make, the louder your cheering section gets!
Love you C… Today is for you… Make it count 🙂
Julie. you are one of the best friends anyone could or will ever have. I love you dearly and know how your heart breaks over the people you love, who choose not to listen. Just keep putting it out there in your own quiet way, it may register with her some day. Until that day we will all hold her in our prayers too.
Mom… You might be a little biased… but I LOVE that about you 🙂