I read a quote the other day that made me think long and hard about friendships. The quote was "At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time and none of you knew." I find that even as adults we have the same thing happen. Now This post contains a ton of spoilers. This is very much a present day raw and rough post. It may wreck some things for you all as I am no were near this part of my story.
A few years ago I went for an interview for a job and the hiring manager and I just clicked. We just got a long extremely well and had a lot of similar interests. We very quickly became not just amazing coworkers but also fantastic friends. Her husband and my boyfriend even got along amazingly. I know it sounds stupid but it was like we were all meant to be friends. Elizabeth was there when I purchased my first horse since moving westward. She was our reference with the SPCA when we got our first cat. Hell she even helped us pack up ad move four hours away after oil crashed and both Tuck ad I were out of work. Every time we were down her and Mark would help pick us back up.
I don't want to say Elizabeth was my best friend, but she was definitely one of my best. There was a time her and I were inseparable. She would come out to the farm with me to spend time with my horse. I'd even go grocery shopping with her sometimes just to keep her company. When I look back now I see our friendship progressed too fast, it was inevitable that it would come crashing down just as fast later. I just didn't realize how much it would hurt to lose that fast friendship.
Tuck and I moved back this fall when the oil field picked back up. My first sign that our friendship was ending should have been then. Elizabeth promised to come and help us unpack once we got here. The plan had been in place for over a month. The day of suddenly she was unreachable. She was also supposed to travel back down with me the next day making a huge nine to ten hour round trip drive to go pick up the horses. Both days I heard nothing from her. I rationalized it as she had just a month before decided to leave her husband and that she just had a lot on her mind. I really should have taken it for what it was, we just weren't friends anymore.
For months I fought to try and get back the friendship we had. I tried inviting her to come spend time at the farm with me. I tried inviting her over for craft nights or just to watch movies. Even to go for walks with the dogs and I. Anything that would have been completely normal before but that was now extremely strained. I talked with mutual friends about it, trying to get advice on what to do, but they all had the same issue and honestly couldn't help me.
Elizabeth was supposed to be my maid of honor. When Tuck first asked me to marry him, she was the first person I told. Right away she started helping me plan. I knew she was going to be my maid of honor. She even made the four hour drive down to come with me to try on wedding dresses. After moving back up here I ended up going on my own and finding the dress as Elizabeth never replied to me anymore. The day I found the dress we decided to have a bunch of people over to celebrate as me finding the dress was the only thing holding us back from actually picking a wedding date. That night was the first I had seen Elizabeth in weeks. She showed up at our house as everyone was leaving and I drunkenly had a chat about how I felt like we just weren't friends anymore. She had assured me that wasn't the case, but really I already knew then, in my heart of hearts, that we weren't.
Over Christmas things got really rough. So rough that every night I went to bed hoping that I would not wake up the next morning. I was so down that nothing could cheer me up. I did a hell of a lot of faking it. No one, other than Tuck, knew how low I was, but really he didn't know how low exactly until the night I did attempt to take my life. The part that makes me the saddest of this all is that when I was at that low point I reached out to Elizabeth. I told her how bad things were, that I wanted nothing more than to die. She didn't even care. She just brushed me off like I was nothing. She had been there for me before every step of the way thru my depression, encouraging me thru all the crazy things I tried to make it better. It hurt so much that I didn't even tell Tuck about her brushing me off in fear that he would either brush me off or be mad at her.
I know I wasn't the greatest friend to her at one point. I judged her a little harshly about her decision to leave Mark, but I wasn't the only one to judge her so harshly, I was just the only one who had the balls to tell her how ridiculous the whole thing was. I'd get into detail about it but I swear my story will catch us up to that eventually as it would take me forever to get thru that. I also know that no matter how poorly she has treated me, no matter what, if she reached out to me because she wanted to die I would drop everything to be there for her. I'd let everything that was bothering me go to the back burner because my feelings about her at that time wouldn't mean anything compared to her being so low that she wants nothing more than to die. While my mental state is far better now than I ever expected it to be, I am still extremely hurt by this situation.
Fast forward to now and I have tried my absolute best to put on a happy face for our mutual friends and to try and find a new group of friends, just to distance myself from the hurt. Somehow things have gotten even worse with Elizabeth and myself. To the point she won't come to things if she knows I will be there. Now in all the time I have know her there is only one other person she won't go around and that is because that person since her leaving her husband will not hold back his feelings, nor will he hold back the truth about what is going on. Our mutual friends have told me in the last couple weeks that I apparently told Mark about her sleeping with their roommate, which I did not. IF he directly asked me if she was I would answer him honestly as I will not lie for anyone, not even one of my best friends. It has come as a shock to everyone as it suddenly just came out, yet it has been months of there being an issue. At this point I am more than ready to completely walk away from even our mutual friends as I have become sick of hearing more and more about things I have apparently done to her.
Back to the quote I mentioned at the beginning of my post. If I had known the last time all us girls were together that, that would be the last time would I have actually spent time with Elizabeth? Would I have done or said something different? I am not sure. I probably would have appreciated the time a little more, but I think if I had known to just walk away, because I know now that no matter what I'd have done that day that eventually our friendship would have crashed and burnt. Like a flaming inferno. While this may have been a little heavy, and a little confusing as I have yet to introduce you all to any of these people, I really needed to write this post. I desperately needed to get all of this off my chest.
Now I have finally found some time to get all my editing done so there will be a second post by Saturday night. From there on out I will be back to posting once a week or once every two weeks. My mental space now has me enjoying my story again. I really hope you all are still sticking around and that my story isn't boring you all to tears.
