My senior year in high school was probably the worst year of my life. A lot of things happened to me that would qualify as earth-shattering by teenage standards. My boyfriend and I broke up. That sucked. My life was about to change. And I didn't know what to do with myself--yes, college, but where? what major? You know, normal teenage angst. But I was holding it all in just fine because I still had the one pillar of my life that just kept me from falling apart... and no, I am not speaking about my family here.
My best friends.
I was a teenager, and that's what teenagers do: they think their parents hate them and they worship the ground their best friends walk on. But one day during my senior year, I saw something. I was on the bus, on my way home, on a regular Wednesday afternoon. And, from the bus window, I saw them: my best friends, and my other friends, all getting in someone's car, without me. I watched them talking and laughing, almost in slow motion, and getting in the car, a car ride to which I wasn't invited. And I knew. I knew that the nagging feeling I had been getting the past few months wasn't just me being paranoid or insecure. I knew that they were purposely not including me. I knew that this car wasn't just a ride somewhere, but a metaphorical departure in which I had been left behind. That day, when I got home, I went up to my bedroom, curled up in a ball, and cried--no, sobbed--myself to sleep.
And I wasn't wrong. Things deteriorated quickly after that. By the time I was a freshman in my local community college, my former best friends were now hanging out with my turd ex-boyfriend on the regular. How do I know this? Because, even though none of them were actual faithful Catholics, they all showed up to Sunday mass one day, together. Knowing I would be there. Showing no respect for the mass. Just there so I could see them all together, without me.
I cried the whole mass. The lady next to me tried to console me, even though she didn't know what was happening.
So, yes, when my two best friends suddenly decided I was no longer required, my pillar fell apart, and my life crumbled. And I was very angry and very sad for a long time. The heartbreak of losing them was ten times worse than the heartbreak I had felt over my boyfriend (who I thought had been the "love of my life" up to that point *scoffs*).
And my heart was so wounded for such a long time that I forgot how to love friends--how to truly love them. I put up walls around my heart, and I writhed in my misery and my depression. For a long, long time.
Until I decided, years later, to give it all up to the Lord. To let Him take care of that heartbreak. And He did, of course. Time was my best ally, as well. My heart slowly healed and I allowed people back in, first as a trickle, and then as a stream. Some people stayed, some people left, but overall I seemed more or less okay, even when people disappointed me or abandoned me. Because my core was still left untouched, and the people who decided to stay made a dwelling in that core and protected it.
That is, of course, until now. I never thought I'd go through that again. Moreover, I would have never imagined that my response to a friend-breakup would be identical to what it was 17 years ago. It's crazy. Just when you think you've grown so much over the years and matured in your relationship with God, yourself, and others, you find yourself being a total devastated adolescent who cannot cope with the loss of two friends who meant to the world but who no longer want to associate with you. It's brutal. I let these people in... very deep. I thought they'd be part of those loves who dwell around my core and protect it. But they infiltrated the inside just to destroy it, to break me from within. I watched them interact with each other--these two people whom I introduced and forced into a friendship by virtue of always having them around each other since they were my friends-- watched them become the best of friends, watched them ignore me, disregard me, avoid my gaze, walk in front of me, never think about me, not have a shred of consideration toward me, never pick up my phone calls, never answer my messages, use any and every excuse available to not be around me. I watched them text each other in front of me when they interacted with me, and giggle, probably at my expense. I watched them in disbelief, almost as if I was having an out-of-body experience, because my heart can't bear the pain. I watched them be unnecessarily cruel toward me, when just a few months ago they were part of "my all."
And suddenly I am in high school again. I am that girl, on her bedroom floor, sobbing, feeling her heart being ripped to shreds. Because two people whom I thought would be a part of my life forever won't be. Because two people who I've given all my love to do not love me back. At all. In the least. I'm a nuisance to them. I am a bother. Someone to avoid. Someone who prevents them from having a good time. One of them, in fact, only has a disdainful look for me, as if I'm the one who's mortally wounded her. And I sit here and I wonder what I've done wrong, and come to the conclusion that calling people out on their shit and inviting them to be a better person must be a crime because that is the only way in which I think I've "failed" them. That's what I get for trying to be a damn moral guide and not coddle and love everyone "just as they are," right?
I can't do anything. I can't study. I can't focus. I can't clean or cook. All I can do is sit here and nurse this pain, hold the pieces of my shattered heart in my arms because there's no one else to do it. I can't believe this is happening and I can't believe I don't have the gumption or determination or self-love to just get over it. It's broken me. I'm broken, I'm not me anymore. Just a basket case. Over two people I met a year ago. Sad and pathetic, indeed. Why can't I just let it go? Yes, it's unfair, but I daresay it won't be the last time something unfair happens to me, right? So what, Lord God, needs to happen so that I can let this go and not hurt this way anymore?
I'm so tired.
