Broken friendship

Every so often you are blessed with having someone walk into your life and changing it for good. That happened to me back in September 2018. I was sat in a bar in a backpacker hostel in Uvita, Costa Rica minding my own business when suddenly life was never the same again. That person walked in to my life and for the past 3 years has been my person, my rock, my support system, my best friend. Until suddenly they weren’t any more.

There’s a grief that comes when someone walks out of your life but they are still of this world. It’s a grief like no other. The grief of a friendship like no other. Plans for the future shattered into a million pieces because of a word said out of turn or an action taken the wrong way. Someone you can’t remember not being in your life, who you couldn’t imagine not being in your future – gone.

It’d be so easy to demonise them – but it takes two to make a friendship and it takes two to break one as well. As the saying goes – it takes two to tango. I know my part in the downfall of the friendship. I take ownership of my inability to open up and speak my truth in the moment. I take ownership of the frustration that caused. I know that I have said and done things that triggered them – not always knowingly (certainly one of the final triggers was unintentional and I am mortified it wasn’t seen as that). Ultimately though – everything was from a place of love.

It is a love that I’d not felt before and couldn’t understand. I still feel it towards them – and I take some comfort that their last words to me (so far) were of love towards me too. Love is a strange beast – it’s what makes the world go round. There are so many different types of love – think of those beings or places in your life that you love. Do you love each of them the same way? I doubt you do. Some loves are enduring – others just fleeting. This one – I think is enduring … but only time will tell.

In the days since they’ve gone I have mourned, I’ve cried more tears than I thought it were possible for the human body to hold, I’ve played the victim … but I have also counted my blessings that they did grace my life for 1,208 days. They haven’t all been happy, joyous days. They include some of the darkest times of their life, they include meltdowns and falling apart on both sides. They’ve also included light, warmth, hope, love, laughter and connection. They were someone who saw me – in a way no one else ever has (including me). I still have their photo in a place I see every day – I have it there to remind me of the person they see in me and to inspire me to be that person.

All I’ve wanted to do since the parting is to speak to them one last time – to say what I’ve not had the opportunity to say. I’ve wanted to celebrate them. To celebrate all that we have gone through together. To celebrate who they are – to celebrate their light, their warmth, their most beautiful heart and their precious soul. To thank them for the inspiration and support they have offered me. For being the moon in my dark hours and the sunshine to see me through my day. I hope beyond hope that I’ll have the opportunity to say this to them. I hope that in months, maybe years to come there will be the opportunity to try and rebuild our friendship – but I also know for now that our paths have to go in different directions.

For someone like me with self worth issues – I have been completely overwhelmed by the support of friends on hearing about this. Thank you so much to everyone who has reached out – for offering some light in the darkness. Please bear with me – my confidence and trust in others have been shattered and it’s going to take me a while to navigate through the pieces as I rebuild me.