You have been best friends for eleven years. You grew up together, cried together, smoked pot for the first time together. They know all of your most embarrassing secrets, like the fact that you do not wash your hands after using the bathroom, and they know about that time you got finger fucked by a guy while you were passed out at a party when you were fourteen and everyone just stared at you afterwards, like it was your fault. They were there to hold your hand when your boyfriend broke up with you over the telephone, after two years, because you lived three hours away, and he was pissed that he was not getting enough blow jobs.
When you got sick, they got sick – even if you were three states away. It was as if, somehow, you were still experiencing a collective life, even though you were in completely different places. You talked about being each others’ bride’s maids, about being the Godmother of each other’s children and about getting gay married for the tax benefits, because men do not marry girls like us.
But after eleven years, things change. People grow apart, and people grow up. The three hour long conversations you used to have every day no longer happen. Phone tag becomes a month long game. They are pissed that you got to go to a four-year college, and they could never afford it. You are pissed that you wrecked yourself at a University for four years and they are still making more than you are working as a bartender. Between jobs, boyfriends and lack of effort, you start to drift apart. Maybe you fight more than you remember. Maybe you cannot talk to them the way you used to. You hear longer silences in between conversations. They start giving you terrible advice. You start giving them terrible advice. You just do not know each other anymore.
It fucking sucks. Losing a best friend is like losing a limb. You can still feel the phantom of it and you find yourself reaching for the empty space in your sleeve. You do not want to admit that maybe too much has changed. You want to blame yourself – or them – for not trying, for not caring and for not making the goddamned effort to pick up the phone after you called them fourteen times in a row because you were positive they must be dead from a serial killing, because why are they not picking up the fucking phone?! They tell you that you are becoming too needy, too clingy. Then, someone does something unforgivable, like CHANGE THEIR NETFLIX PASSWORD, so you cannot even watch Law and Order episodes without them.
It is a part of life that some people who were important to you will fade over time. The relationships you have today will not be the same relationships you have ten years from now. You might have different relationships with the same people, or the same relationships with new people, or different relationships with different people.
As a person currently going through this (COULD YOU GUESS?! SPOILER ALERTZ), I am here to relay some good fucking advice. I’m here to tell you that what you want to do right now is not normal, and people will think you are insane. Please stop driving by their job and cursing at their empty car as you go to pick your sister up from work or throw their shit in a plastic bag and throw it into various corners of your room as if it is a surrogate for their face because that bitch did not even answer your “Happy Birthday” text.
Do not call fourteen times in a row or every day – or at all. If they wanted to answer your phone calls, they would. They do not want to talk to you, and you just seem like a creepy stalker with an iPhone addiction. And rest assured, that is what they are telling all their new friends that they met through their boyfriend who has a lip ring and probably plays in a band called “My Army of Flesh.” If you have called, left messages, and made the honest effort to reach out, and they do not reciprocate, it is time to put down the fucking phone.
Do not blame yourself or her, for that matter. Maybe it is her fault. Maybe it is your fault. Maybe it is no one’s fucking fault because people change every single day, because it is a part of life. Even if someone does deserve the brunt of the blame, blaming someone does nothing to fix the situation at hand. Maybe you will be friends again and maybe you won’t. But right now, you just sound like a Sylvia Plath monologue and it is the worst. Soon, you won’t have any friends because no one wants to hang out with the self-proclaimed victim.
Do not start telling people their private shit. Do not start badmouthing them. Do not make any attempt to be a passive aggressive bitch no matter how much you just want to shake the shit out of them. Even if you two never speak again, you should have enough respect for the friendship you once had to take that shit with you to the grave.
Do take some pictures down – not all of them, but some. Expand your horizons, hang out with some new people, and try to get some perspective. I am not saying that you try and replace your best friend with some girl you met on your Dodge ball team, because we know that is not possible – the girl plays fucking Dodge ball, but you need to pull yourself away. Luckily, there is nothing like a bottle of Jack Daniels and some new friends to make you feel better about yourself.
Do talk to your mom, your sister and your cousins. The people who knew them and know you and have a real grasp of how sad this is for you. Your coworker is not going to understand why it is devastating that you two are not talking. In fact, they will probably think that this is the speech before your coming-out speech (unless you are already out, then congrats! Repeal DOMA! Equality! Etc.) Your family has a moral obligation to listen to you, so you might as well take some goddamned advantage.
Look, losing a friend is not easy. It is one of the shittier parts of getting older – that, and mouth wrinkles and losing control of your bladder and basically being a living corpse. But, it is not the end of the world. You will make new friends, do new things, and move on. You might see each other six years from now and laugh at how stupid it all was. You might pick up exactly where you left off. Or maybe you won’t. Maybe this is it. But, you cannot make a martyr of yourself, play the victim and bitch and moan about how you cannot believe that you two will not be growing old together in a nursing home smoking cigarettes and sneaking Stoli Vodka in. That shit is not healthy, and it is not going to make you feel any less sad.
Pick your ass up, and move on.
Amen.
You’re a brilliant person and a fucking awesome writer. Props and respect lady.