By the time we are in our late thirties we have all suffered some sort of loss in friendship. We may have had to live through the physical passing of a friend, or we may have lost the friendship connection through time and distance, or maybe we lost a friend through conflict. I have experienced all three of these things in the past few years but today I am going to write about the latter.

I am a fiercely loyal friend. Once I decide that I love you, I will defend you from other friends, I will strike fear into the heart of men who attempt to treat you badly and I will deal with an untold amount of drama to keep you in my life. This is not to say that I am perfect. Far from it, in fact. But this I know, if I love you, you will always have a road dog, a down ass bitch who will go “ape shit” on a fool for messing with you. I will have your back.

I have (had?) a friend who I’ve known for about twenty years. I love (loved?) her. She is a strange gal, I mean a real “walks to the beat of her own drum” type. She’s smart, though… So, her unique take on things, whether I agreed or not, were always founded in substance. There were a string of occurrences that ended our friendship, and in retrospect, I think I could have noticed if I had paid better attention. Some I feel a sense of responsibility to and some none at all. Like I said, this is a person who has a unique perspective and her exposure to other cultures, lent themselves to behaviors that left others with mouths agape at times. I defended said behaviors, though… Because our friends don’t always have to do things the way we think they ought to. We make exceptions for personality “flaws” (more like differences) BECAUSE they are our friends. I was crushed to find that I was not afforded those same exceptions. By “crushed” I mean completely heart broken… I mourned this girl. Possibly, am still mourning (gah… Ya think?). She was the one who would always give me honest feedback, “yes, your butt looks big, don’t wear those pants”. She would also talk me through various life struggles and show me different perspectives. Was she not finding fulfillment in me as her friend? Couldn’t we have figured it out? Wouldn’t it have been worth it? Does she not miss me? An even better question would be, does she feel her life is better WITHOUT me in it? I don’t think I want the answer to that. I miss her.

A couple years have passed and IF we see each other (which is extremely rare since I live 350 miles away now) we are polite, but I never loved her for her manners. I loved her for her grit and humor. I wonder why she loved me.

Well, friend… Maybe we’ll cross paths in a different life. Maybe we won’t fuck it up next time.