My birthday was last Monday. Tuesday is K's birthday. We would have known each other forty years, forty one in March 2013. But.
Last spring K decided to email me to let me know she no longer wanted us to be friends. She felt I was getting a bit too "snippy" in my comments on her family. It was okay for her to complain about them but I guess I was only supposed to listen, not make comments. K said that she never made "helpful suggestions" when I complained about my family. Which was true.
I think, now, that her lack of interest in my family problems or my own problems was more a total lack of interest in anything but her own life.
When we shared interests ; like quilting or shopping, we got along just great. I remember laughing with her most of all. And that is what I miss. Laughing and having such a comfortable relationship that we could just sit around the burn pile at her house and not even have to talk.
I visited her. She came to my home only four times that I can remember when we lived in different states (and countries). She always had a long list of chores for us to do together. Burn pile, cutting out quilt pieces, sewing quilt pieces, pruning shrubs, visiting quilt shops, cooking dinner, attending her grandchildren's birthday parties. I enjoyed helping her. We had a good time together.
Tomorrow will be the second September birthday we won't be sharing. And in a few months the second Christmas I don't send her a specially handmade card. For her collection of handmade cards from me.
There are times, like this, when missing her friendship is like an open wound. How many people do we have in our lives who have known us, so well, for so long? I was 25 when we met. She was 20.
We raised our kids together. She went through three marriages and three divorces. We purchased our first homes. Our lives are, were, totally imbedded with the other.
Now that is gone. I had thought, hoped in my heart, that after a year of no communication she would miss me as much as I have missed her. And email that we should be friends again. She didn't. We aren't. And I am grieving.
And that's what was wrong when I wrote that last post--except I didn't KNOW that that was what was wrong. I had to work it out. Thank you for putting up with me regarding this emotional "habit. Now, when I feel like crying--I will know why. And that's the best I can do.
I have a friend like that -- tho we are still friends. She lives in another state and was recently in Denver. I told her that I had obligations every day but Saturday, but on Sat I could drive 2 hours to Denver and we could visit. Never happened, never saw her. I am the one that always has to make the effort. She has been to my house once in 30 years. I have been to her house every 2 years. I've 'missed' going now for 4 or 6 years, because I always have to clean her house. She is a hoarder and that is another can of worms. We talk on the phone as she rarely does email or the facebook. Hang in there. This will pass.
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