facing the search-light
i read my ex-friend's memoir
12:56 AM, and i just finished finally reading an ex-friend’s memoir.
so, i am here to process and confess my shame.
admittedly, i have a compulsion for searching —-
-the weeks i’ve spent pouring over posts in a sub-reddit to process my brief participation in a very expensive tantra workshop
-the all-nighters i’ve spent researching the culty coaching industry i’ve participated in, and its ties to the abusive kundalini yoga culture i have also participated in
-the deep dives i do, persistently, on the palestinian-israeli conflict, including tonight when my partner and i role played as prime ministers of israel and gaza to explore what we would do in those positions - pausing to fact check throughout on wikipedia and the jewish virtual library.
(this emerged after he found me reading minor dutch news outlets and translating them into english to process the post-soccer violence in Amsterdam last month, and then made me dinner because i was hangry, devolving and would not stop.)
not to mention-
-writing for my whole life, allowing unseen truths to unfurl through my fingers.
sometimes the more we search, the less we understand.
so, why the fuck would i read an ex-friend’s memoir?
do i hate myself?
(maybe.)
that said-
i’m on a path toward facing things i’ve previously not been able to face,
when i was more severely sick and disabled:
-ongoing family therapy with my previously semi-estranged dad
-co-planning and attending a high school reunion (run around high school with an open bottle, ferris bueller-style? don’t mind if i do. just watch out for the mean girls. though, it’s better they showed up at all, unlike the boys…but this is another post…)
-moving forward in my romantic relationship, about which i’ve been ambivalent, to just fucking see it through already
-making an appointment at the doctor, tomorrow, where i’m about to receive answers about my blood tests that make me nervous, and explore my fertility
facing, literally, everything.
facing the search-light.
leaving no stones unturned in my quest to move forward in my life, in the light.
i had done my best to forget about her.
i acted like i didn’t care.
after years of avoidance, i still found myself
terrified i might be featured in it, knowing i’d be let down if i wasn’t in it at all.
the strange thing about an ex-friendship is it leaves you wondering what the hell that relationship really was, after all. you think you know people…
i read the book with part-mind seeing this person as separate from me with compassion, part-mind feeling all my hurt feelings about our friendship’s demise.
i read multiple chapters in which i had been present at the event described.
it felt awkward to see myself as both present and erased.
i read myself described with a word that is not accurate to what i am.
i read about a significant and difficult action that i made, that impacted us all, and i guffawed out loud when it was attributed to someone else. (or maybe there was something i did not see? a both/and?)
i read the scene describing one thing my ex-friend did that hurt me, that led me to ask us to talk more to work things out, which led to her pulling away.
i read about the friends she included in her inner circle, at the time that i had thought that i was her inner circle.
what went wrong in our friendship that made me think i was one of her bests?
was i delusional?
or do i remember correctly the times that she said that she loved me, called me family, insisted she wanted to be there for me no matter what was happening, answered my texts, facetimes, calls, attended one another’s special events, knew each others’ families…
as i write this i can soak in, plain as day, my inextricable presence in that chapter of her life. though, i do not know if she authentically wanted me there, or not.
despite not speaking in years-
there, on those pages,
i still exist.
even in that story that was only hers to tell.
that’s something.
at the end of the book, she thanks her friends: i see so many names once woven into my life, too. i see her family, and i could name every single one of them without looking. i could also tell you the shit she said about them behind their backs.
the thing about losing friends, is you lose the entire fabric of their lives to which you once belonged. you are woven out.
i do not think she meant to end our friendship. i think she was feeling her way through something hard, and offering what she had, while learning new relationship skills. but the execution was unskillful, one sided, and truly broke my heart.
i needed better.
i was newly sick and disabled and i needed truly reciprocal friendships to hold me in my untenable grief and terror.
i would have settled for some kind of agreed upon distance until we were ready to repair, but after accusing me of vague gaslighting without explanation,
but also saying she was willing to meet me for a casual coffee (lol)
— i no longer felt safe.
when i look back at that era, multiple close friendships fell a part when we all needed more than the others could give us. weddings, sickness, deaths.
and perhaps out of everyone else: i needed the most.
staying in friendships that could not meet me, did not serve any of us.
for that, my ex-friend was correct,
no matter how cruelly she shared that perception,
how many years i have hated her for it (and hated that i hated her),
and so badly wanted to characterize her as completely, entirely wrong.
oh, she is wrong about a lot of things. many in her now dog-eared memoir.
but that one — i have to hand it to her.
i wish she would have given me the dignity of meeting one another where we were, without having to bury the brewing pain, and act casual.
i could not.
my partner entered my life in the wake of these friendship losses.
though we’ve had a 6 year tumultuous friendship-turned-romance,
he has (mostly) stood by me - in sickness, and health, that still has some sickness.
whenever we lapsed, we both made ourselves available for the repair.
since then, i have now been through deep repairs with my own family.
through this, i am coming to believe there is no limit to the repair or healing possible for those of us able and willing to stick it out.
with this ex-friend, i wanted to be in the messy recovery together.
she could not.
though hindsight can be 20/20 —
every writer has the power to wield her pen the way she’d like to remember.
here, now, is my pen,
here i go, oh,
here we go again…
thank you to all of the writers for helping one another search and face and find.
Wonderful!!