..and I’m perfectly normal. That, perhaps, is the nicest feeling in the world. Just knowing that whatever you are going through, it’s not unique to you, and there are characteristics of it that are experienced by others going through the same thing. Misery does love company – it’s what makes miserable, tolerable.
I had an epic friendship come to a sudden end through my own selfishness and ignorance, combined with losing my mother. I had a hard time for a very long time. I hid in my misery because I thought people would think it strange that losing a friend could tear me apart in such a way. I got through it. It’s still not entirely over, but it’s easier.
This morning I came across a memoir on friendship in the current issue of More magazine. If you have ever had a such a loss, go right out and get a copy of this magazine. The article is written by Jacquelyn Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean). It’s called “Where did our friendship go wrong?” For me, it is one of those articles where I feel the author is writing my story. My favorite line was:
“It had taken half a century and a hard knock to teach me not to be prouder of having friends than of being one.”
The ending was what knocked it home:
“With just a little more time, I expect to be able to give my relationship with Liz the place it deserves in my life history. It’s over. But it was, as my friend David said, an epic friendship.
I fold it tenderly, as I would the baptismal gown of a child now grown. It is no longer useful. But it is still precious. It will always be mine.”
Wow. That’s what I said out loud to myself when I finished the article. She wrote my thoughts. Told my story. I couldn’t have summed it up at the end any better than that. I put down the magazine and proceeded to clean up after the holiday weekend. As I pushed the vacuum cleaner, I felt a joyful, comforting feeling. I felt I wasn’t alone in reacting so intensely to the hard loss of a girlfriend. I wasn’t crazy. Everything I experienced was entirely normal. Doing a wrong to someone, apologizing profusely in every way, shape and form and having it rejected and being shut out of that person’s life forever, IS devastating. It cripples you for awhile. It leads you down the road of questioning what kind of a person you are. It leads to constant berating of yourself. It magnifies fear of loss. You’re afraid people will think “It’s a girlfriend for God’s sake, get over it!”, so you hide it and fight it with your own silent tears and pain.
This is what being an author is all about. Touching people’s lives by not being afraid to put your own experiences out there to help someone else and that’s why I wanted to share this article with you. I’m hoping to be able to write the story of my own epic friendship someday, but right now I’m still too wounded to even know where to begin. Thanks to authors like Jacquelyn Mitchard, I’m feeling the peace of knowing I’m okay, I’m going to be okay, and most importantly, I’m not alone. And if I’m not alone, then there must be more of you out there who lost a friend, by your own hand, and are so sorry, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You, too, will be okay.
And so, as another day goes by, let’s “fold it gently, like a baptismal gown of a grown child”, and put it away….and…I have written.
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