In the last month or so, a situation arose in one of my closest friendships where we spoke heated angry words at each other, I stormed out the room in tears and she packed up her stuff and left my house. I’m not even going to go into the details of our petty fight over something ridiculously inconsequential. For whatever reason this small thing triggered us both into big emotional reactions, and threw us into that grey area. Do we make up, or is it time to break up?
It’s not exactly common for her and I to fight like this, but it wouldn’t be accurate to say we always see eye to eye or find it easy to get along either. Each of us is well practiced at turning a blind eye to a heated comment or making a well timed joke to ease rising tensions. As she is easily the friend I spend the most time with, and as we are close, it stands to reason that we also get on each other’s nerves from time to time. Usually, we manage to make it work. But not always.
In the past we have broken up once before. We went our separate ways for 18 months, eventually being drawn back together. Similar circumstances presented, heated words and accusations followed by the loudest silence. She was the one to break the silence that time; I never would have. I tend to be a bit proud, and take the rejection quite personally. If you have left my life, I wont beg you to stay. But the 18 months we spent apart were hard on me. I missed her and I hated that I missed her, because I didn’t think she missed me. That hurt.
So, when I found myself once again swimming in the silence between us, it was time to ask myself, was this gong to be a comma, or a full stop? Initially it seemed clear, that after 10 years, if we still couldn’t get along, then this had to end. Our differences were clearly insurmountable and our needs were obviously opposing. Why keep trying when no matter how many times we tried to rewrite the story, it always ended the same way? I knew we loved each other, but love clearly wasn’t enough.
Each day that passed in silence weighed heavier than the one before. I didn’t really know why. Wasn’t it supposed to get easier? Why was it feeling worse? Perhaps it was her birthday gift that arrived in the mail the same day she stormed out of my house, and maybe my life? Or maybe it was the GALentines rose that sat mocking me on my bedside table? It might’ve been the photos of her that appear everyday in the little collection of photos my phone makes up for me, as she’s always in them. Probably because my phone is filled with all the happy memories we have shared over the last decade of friendship. It could’ve been the reminders in my phone about her niece’s birthday, or the pregnancy test that tumbled out of my bathroom cupboard onto my foot when I reached in for a new tube of toothpaste, as she is trying to conceive.
There were reminders of her, remnants of our scattered friendship everywhere I looked. My freezer has dog food for when her dogs are here. My cupboard has toys for when her young family members come to play. My buffet has a laminator and pouches for any work she needs to do at my place at short notice. My pantry has her favourite snacks, my fridge her favourite drinks. It could have been any of those reminders of how close we have become and how intertwined our lives have become. If anything, it was probably when my son received 4 awards for his outstanding efforts the year before, when she tutored him to a place of acceptance into his chosen field of study. I started to realise, I need this person. She’s become part of us over the years. More than that, I want her to stay a part of us. I missed her.
Being a Leo, however, still means I have too much pride, and refused to actually tell her any of this and end the long and loud silence lingering between us. Instead, I quietly hoped she would once again make the reconciliatory move. The difference between this time and last time, however, was that this time, she actually had apologized. Unfortunately I wasn’t ready for apologies then. I was still heated and self righteous. For all my talk of things like “do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” Apparently the question wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed. At that time, I felt I was right and that did make me happy. So I shot her apology down with some ugly harsh words, and on reflection, I felt that I had probably put the final nail in my own coffin by doing so.
When emotions are high and heated like this, it is easy to let logic fly out the window, and apparently all my windows were open that day. And my door. I let her leave and I regretted it now, yet seemed unable to take any steps to rectify the situation. So I let the silence drag on, all the while knowing, deep down, I was making things way worse, and if I didn’t act soon, it would be too late.
I went to dinner with another trusted long term friend, and I shared the situation with her. She asked me how we left things and I told her. She asked me if I was sorry and I said that I was sorry, yes. She asked me why I hadn’t apologized if I was sorry? I shrugged, and said “Pride?” She asked me if I was proud of how we had left things and I laughed and said “it was hardly my proudest moment was it?” And so, she concluded, I knew what I had to do.
She was right. I had to apologise if there was any hope of saving this. If I didn’t, I would be throwing away 10 years of friendship over a petty disagreement that got blown out of proportion, because I was too proud to say sorry? Too afraid of rejection? We had 10 years between us. Did I not trust her? What did I think she would do? The worst she could do was ignore me, which she was already doing… so what was there to lose?
The next morning, I reached out and apologized. I told her she was too important to me to just throw it all away over something stupid, that I had over reacted and that we still needed and wanted her in our lives. That I loved her and I didn’t want to regret not trying to reconcile because I let pride get in the way when I wasn’t proud of how we left things.
That afternoon, she thanked me for reaching out, said we probably just needed some space, and although it would be a bit awkward seeing each other for the first time again, she appreciated my apology and of course it wasn’t too late for us. We decided not to be awkward, just to laugh it off like we had always done in the past, hug it out and soldier on.
Close relationships, including friendships sometimes experience friction. It isn’t the friction that defines you, but the recovery that does. The trust and vulnerability, can actually bring you closer. If you allow it. I always say Friendships are akin to platonic relationships, which means they take the same commitment and effort to communicate, show up, and make things work. It is easier to walk away from a friend than a romantic relationship, but the easiest path is seldom the right one is it?
I can’t tell you if you should break up or make up with your friend. But I can tell you it is worth weighing up how much your friendship means to you and if you would rather live with trying to reconcile and being turned down, or the regret of not knowing what might have happened if you had been willing to try. It feels so much better to fight for her than fight against her. So fight for whatever feels right for you, and just know we are proof that either way, it ain’t over til it’s over.
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
