Parting Ways with Your Childhood Best Friend & All the Ways It Sucks

I'll apologize slightly for the tone of this if you're looking for some cheer, but the world doesn't seem to be dishing much of that out currently.  You know what they say, when it rains it pours.  I've been going through a pretty big underlying shift over the last few weeks regarding this topic, and I realized a lot of people deal with it.  I wanted to get some of the emotional baggage off my chest when it comes to very consciously cutting the string to your childhood best friend.

You never thought it would happen

I know, to some extent no one ever expects that her best friend will not be there with them in the nursing home kicking up a raucous time.  Or maybe she'll live in the house across the street and you'll make a routine of sipping cocktails on the weekend after kicking butt at your dream jobs all week (or living your dream life, whatever it is for you).  Heck, maybe you even share a loft and remain roommates while you conquer the world, because you guys just don't need anyone else.

As you talk about your crushes in the 4th grade lunch line you definitely aren't thinking of a future where you're 25, you've been trying to tether together some semblance of interest in each other's lives for the last 4 years, and every interaction you have in person (or not) is somehow tied to the inside jokes, memories, and nostalgia established back in 4th grade.

Okay, maybe in 4th grade it seemed really cool to think you'd still be impressed with your 4th grade self at 25. Who am I kidding?

Nonetheless, you probably don't predict the breakup back then, but you always know when it's getting ready to happen.

The real "C" word

Change. It's trite. It's overdone.  Look up an article on psychology websites, they'll all tell you about change and drifting apart being au natural. There's a truth in it.

My personal revelation occurred when I finally moved within 2 hours of my best friend after spending almost all of our 12 years of best friendship as an army kid who lived 10 hours away and only got to reunite on holidays and summers. My friend managed to see me twice. Both times I had driven from my college city (which was already away from everything I knew) to our hometown to see my grandparents, where she was still living at home and going to school.  She never made the trip, not once.

I realized that our friendship was not centered there because I was always so far away, but because I was putting in every effort to make it work.  That wasn't changing.

Since then, there have been select times where she is even in my city and can't bother to tell me. I will either notice it on Facebook or she makes no effort to plan anything.

Change sucks, but sometimes the change is in how you view the friendship and when you start to see things that fix your perspective.

Real World Differences

A lot of what brings people together is shared experience, struggle, and/or a history.  I've discovered that as my friend and I grew up we helped shape each other a lot and continued to share personality traits and even habits. 

However, there seemed to be a disconnect at some point. Differences make friendships better. They strengthen you because they help you empathize.  They help you understand others and become better at interacting with people you may not love as dearly as you do that friend.

That being said, sometimes you find yourself talking or looking into the face of someone you don't know. I can't say that there was a huge path split between us. We both finished college on time, started our post grad degrees, and were successful in those processes. I got married, but if anything we were closer while the wedding planning and event occurred than we had been in years.

Nonetheless, I talk to her and feel like I'm forcing conversation at a lunch with colleagues from a different department at work.  I don't feel comfortable discussing things with them, because despite a few similarities I don't know their lives.

You just can't ignore some things into non-existence.

Letting Go or Watching Them Let Go

I refused to admit that this was happening to my "twin," as we so lovingly referred to each other, and I.  For nearly 6 years, since first starting college and feeling a gap, I've denied that we've drifted in any way.  

In the last few months I've let myself accept it and begin to cope.  I had one of those moments that truly felt out-of-body when she casually dropped that both of her parents were struggling with terminal illness and had been for the last year-- something she had not mentioned to me in the slightest.

Up until that point I'd made an effort to text her, at the very least, once a week to check in and feel familiar with the person I claimed to know me for the longest and care the most.  

At that point I had to question what exactly she saw me as, even if subconsciously. I wasn't a person she shared struggles with anymore, and it hurt me on a really deep level. It hurt me that I had no idea what her life was, and that there was no amount of effort on my part that could fix it.

This is the short and skinny, obviously.  I didn't find out that her aging parents were ill and then commence in ending our friendship.  As a matter of fact, I tried harder then.  I tried my best to connect and ask questions, to find a way to see her.  It didn't work.  She was nonchalant and uninterested.

After a few weeks, I stopped sending the weekly messages. I told myself it would be an indicator for my somewhat guilty conscience (I don't like giving up on anything).

She never said a word.

We announced my pregnancy in December, probably 3 weeks after I stopped contacting her. 

She "liked" one of my mom's photos.

I haven't received a word from her since I stopped sending those weekly messages, and it honestly reminds me of the feeling of being "ghosted" by guys long ago-- except it's tenfold. 

I don't write this to give advice. I write it because it sucks, and there aren't ways to cure the problem when it's happening.  However, shaming ourselves and others for feeling this and going through it is so unhelpful.  Maybe lifelong friendships exist for different people at different times.  However, the idea that you owe someone you meet in elementary school an honorary position and any dissolution of that relationship is somehow someone's fault is ridiculous.

So, have a glass of wine (I'll have plenty come July and baby's entrance), and count up all the great people you see daily. Recount all the wonderful acts and words you've been on the receiving end of from others.

You may lose people, but you aren't alone.