Life Leaving Me Behind

I have really not updated my blog in many,many weeks and for good reason. I was not ready to write about the things that have happened since my last blog. I have struggled with the right words to write in the hopes that they truly convey my exact feelings and emotional state. I may not be completely ready but here it goes anyway.

In August Dave and myself were laid off. It was a rough time. My father was extremely sick but I had just spent two weeks in Arkansas visiting with family. I did not spend near enough time talking with my father about the things that had been bothering me for quite some time. We did not talk much about his health. There were a million things to say and we covered a tiny, minute percentage.

My sister and I had a HUGE fight that left me feeling very bitter and angry. She and I are two completely different people with two completely different view points on life. We both love each other but at times we do not like each other. That happens with siblings but the best part is that we each move on in our own time. She is quick to anger and express herself but quick to get over it and move on. I, on the other hand, am slow to anger and carefully express myself but it takes a very long time for me to move past angry words spoken. She's a great person and has so many wonderful attributes that it is IMPOSSIBLE not to love her. She is the one person I tend to miss the most, especially combined with her husband, because they make me laugh so much. She is quick, witty, intelligent, smart assed and one of the most giving people on the planet.

So I come back to absolute madness. Dave became very sick and I worried daily that it was cancer. It was a very stressful time but we came through it. He found a job in Portland and we moved.

Then the rug was ripped from beneath me. My father passed away unexpectedly on November 8th. It was the worst day of my life. I sat numbly while struggling through hours of flights. I didn't know what to say, think or do. I felt like an outsider while my family made plans for his visitation. There were so many things I wanted to bring up and talk to him about that I never got the chance. It is hard to have meaningful conversation over the phone, especially when neither of us are good on the phone. I felt forgotten.

The days that followed were a nightmare of watching the people I love the most suffer while I tried to come to grips that he was never going to pick up the phone again. He was never going to be at a family gathering. I was never going to argue politics with him again and get him riled up. He was gone. I broke down a few times in private while I was there.

The visitation was an opportunity to see the love he had planted throughout his life. There were so many wonderful visits with people I have not seen in years. Many of my friends came to support us in our time of grief. My Facebook messages were loaded with friends reaching out to support me and let me know that I could always talk to them about what I was feeling.

I came back with my oldest daughter Kennedy in tow. The living situation where she had been living had deteriorated and now I had to relearn typical teenage behavior and incorporate her into Dave and Maesin's life. It has been difficult but there are wonderful moments when I look at everyone and think, "this is what life is about."

There have been many days that I've broken down completely while in private. I'm not a public emotion person when it comes to the darker emotions. I kept a tight lid on my pain. But slowly I began to get needy. I began to crave conversations with people in my life, especially my bestest friend.

But something changed between her and I.

Let me preface the following by what true friendship means. It means  that your best friend has an intimate road map of your soul. They bring joy and light to dark situations. They make you laugh even when all you want to do is cry. They side with you in every situation even when you are definitely in the wrong. No subject is taboo.

Until those subjects become taboo.

The problem when two people are so close is that toes get stepped on. Feelings get hurt. One friend feels like the others do not trust their decisions and that is probably true because we do not have that inside perspective. We don't know what our best friends are truly feeling because, perhaps, they do not know it well themselves. The main thing is that we do not want to ever see them hurt. Period. So we try to steer them into safe situations just as we would with our children. In fact, best friends, often hold those precious spots that our children occupy because there is unconditional love with the caveat that they can do whatever they want as long as they are happy and free of any pain.

This week has been difficult. I fought with my husband over me expressing my feelings and felt that I was punished for finally getting the courage to speak my mind. I expressed my feelings to my best friend and was punished for speaking my mind. Words were written and exchanged and what started out clear, at least on my part, morphed as my anger took hold.

I was feeling neglected by her. I felt that she did not value my time and the time I took out of my very busy schedule to text or call her. I didn't get return calls. All I would see was her taking the time to post on Facebook and spend energy and time on someone that had caused her pain yet....she stopped talking to me. I felt alone so I wrote her.

Her response was not positive and it hit me at a bad moment in the day. I got pissed. I got angry. She wanted time apart and for me to stop making "snide" comments on her Facebook so I removed her from my friends list. To my mind that was the solution. When we got over our snit, I would add her again and apologize. To my mind that was what she was asking for.

Uh...ya. She didn't take it well and words that made sense in my mind, were not taken the same by her. It deteriorated rapidly with a flurry of her reminding me of all the people in her life that told her to ditch me and me getting extremely hot. I wanted to yell and scream at her about the flack I've taken for her. Lots of curse words were exchanged and to sum up this story: we severed communication completely. It was a fare thee well and do not contact me ever again. To her it was over.

I was angry. So very, very angry because this same exact scenario had happend in 2007 except it was me being the douchebag and not treating her as a true friend should. I had stopped contacting her much and stopped communicating with her. She sent me a note telling me our friendship was over because, essentially, I was taking her for granted and not being a good friend. I fought for our relationship. I refused to walk away from my bestest friend in the entire world. From that day on I made sure to always take an active interest in her life. To be the one to initiate contact and to be a better friend.

I wish I could tell you the same happened in this situation but it didn't. She walked away and I was left reading and re-reading her email. Why throw up childish taunts about how others told her to walk away from me? Had I not always been supportive? Had I not always tried to give her gentle, sage advice about the people who stressed her out the most? Yet...she became too busy for me.

I still struggle with my anger over the issue. It has faded, as all anger does, and I realize things were said that probably needed to be just kept internally until both tempers had calmed down.

What has this taught me? What has the past few months taught me? The cynic says "If something is bothering you....keep it to yourself because it is NOT worth the fight. Just suck it up and take it on the chin." But that is not the right way to approach life. It IS better to express yourself and let your feelings be known, otherwise they ferment.

The other lesson is that people change, life changes and there is nothing you can do. Period. You can plan, you can analyze but in the end life will do with you as it wants. You cannot hold on to people forever because in one second they can be gone.

It has also taught me one incredible lesson: You truly cannot measure how much something or someone means to you until they are gone. You can love them with all of your heart but until they are gone you simply do not realize how much of your heart they held.

I will eventually cry over the loss of my friendship. I will debate constantly on whether to take it on the chin and text.

I will still cry almost daily over the loss of my father and the loss of our father-daughter relationship that had faded significantly over the past three years.

I will have days that I miss Arkansas and my family and friends so much that I cry. I pray that they will get off their asses and visit my home. A home that I love so much because of the wonderful environment that allows me to flourish and finally find a measure of peace. That one day soon they will sit on the beach with me and understand why Oregon brings me so much peace.

My heart will never be the same but it will eventually move on and heal. The scars will remain and I will treasure each of those scars because they mean something important.