The Welcome Wagon
I screamed into the air with frustration and threw my phone across the room, watching it bounce off the soft couch cushions. Pissed. Angry. Hurt.
Friendship had never affected me this way. Sure, there had been disagreements, frustrations, and misunderstandings. But I’d never been hurt so close to home. I didn’t really know why or what happened. It was a blur. I just knew I felt like shit. Like I had suddenly lost something valuable.
Six years before…
I woke up to go to my job as an accounting clerk at the local aquarium. Deep in the basement, these cold, foul stenching trenches were my second home. We prepared cash deposits and floats, taking up very little of the day actually working. We were mostly free to watch Juno on a loop and debate about our favourite Miley Cyrus songs. It was the early days of Facebook, and we spent hours scrolling rather than doing any real work. This type of down time is freeing, but days are dull and unsatisfying.
It was carefree yet completely mind numbing. I searched for identity, meaning, and genuine human interaction. Department lunches were spent with overpriced Greek food, having to explain what being a twenty-something meant to a room of 40+ women who clearly thought I was beyond weird, thanks to arms full of tattoos and no interest of the suburban life that consumed the rest of the room. Each day was harder than the last, grasping for a real connection with someone — anyone. And then one day it happened.
Walking past my boss’ desk to drop off some reports, I noticed a new face in the room. She was a couple years younger than me, strikingly beautiful, and seemed a little unsure of her new surroundings.
We got to know each other over jokey emails, exploring this tourist trap of a job together, and escaping on our lunch breaks, commiserating about our surroundings. Faye and I were fast friends. Soon, we were connecting over our tastes in music, going out dancing together wearing over the top costumes, working on creative projects, and became essentially attached at the hip. I felt like I had met the friend I always wanted and always lacked.
The years went by and our friendship fostered and bloomed. When heading to an event, people would automatically we would be coming together, and when I’d show up alone, was always greeted with a “Oh, where’s Faye tonight?” I was always single, and sometimes she had a boyfriend, but I couldn’t help but think that I triumphed over them in terms of my closeness and connection to her. This was a different, unique type of friendship — one where we finished each other’s sentences, we would be the only ones to understand each other’s jokes, and nearly every audio and visual stimuli would remind me of her.
We were invited into each other’s parents’ homes (something rather unusual at this point in my adult life), landmarks all across town reminded me of our memories together — the Vietnamese restaurant we crashed a wedding at, the dollar store we had an impromptu dance rehearsal at, the bars we wore all our garish costumes to. So many great reminders came flooding back to me while walking around town, and I felt like I’d finally met that friend you dream about after watching buddy comedies and reading sappy young adult novels.
At one point, I questioned my own sexuality as this was the first time I could really see myself with a woman, having become so emotionally and mentally engulfed in her aura. It took my therapist asking me “Yeah, but could you ever picture yourself having sex with a woman?” to realize that this was a very unique friendship, different from a romantic relationship, but still a deeper and more complex connection than I’d felt in the past.
We not only made each other laugh, acted as dates to each other’s holiday parties and gossiped about pop culture favourites. We also cheered each other on as we excelled in our professional lives, wiped each other’s tears after bad dates and Tumblr romances gone awry. There were many ups and downs in each other’s lives and it felt less lonely knowing we would be there for each other at the end of shitty days, and over brunch on Sundays after exceptionally painful hangovers and heartbreaks.
Like any friendship, we wove in and out of contact a bit, both dealing with our own demons and life challenges. But at the end of the day, I always knew she was there for me, and I’d be there for her. She watched me move homes several times. I watched her go in and out of relationships, failing to find someone who could match her romantic capabilities. We were there for each other in quality regardless of quantity. Until the day that wasn’t the case anymore.
What happened was a string of molehills made into mountains, words we’d both regret, and a series of misunderstandings. The closer you are with someone and the more you trust them, the more you expect out of them. What actually happened is so traumatic and blurry, and really was a mess made out of nothing. And it was totally my fault. I flipped my lid over something minor, and used this as a reason to cut off the best friendship I’d ever known.
It was a confusing time, and I regretted what I said and did almost immediately. But I felt too proud and like I’d gone too far. The major issue with trying to backpedal was the risk of rejection if I’d tried to apologize and patch things up.
In a roundabout way, it was so much easier to move ahead without her rather than try to get her back and have her tell me that she was done with my friendship forever. At least this way, the potential was still on the table for maybe reconnecting one day down the road, even if I never ever did reach out.
Years passed. I walked past the same places in town that used to ignite joy in me with a newfound sadness associated to them. The memories were still glowing within the buildings like cinematic ghosts, glowing in a shiny gold luster, fading away with the new perspective and change of events. I felt like a piece of me was on life support, losing sparkle with every breath.
I passed the Vietnamese restaurant of the wedding we crashed every couple of weeks, as it was near a movie theatre I frequented. Each time I walked past, I saw our shining, dancing ghosts fading more and more until I could almost barely see the vision anymore. One day, the restaurant was boarded up and closed for business. My heart sank, and I couldn’t even physically see through the windows, now covered in newspaper, waiting for new ownership and a new generation of business and memories to be created within. Memories, no doubt, that would never include me, and certainly not include Faye and I together.
When a person you love who tapped into a secret, unlocked part of you is no longer in your life for whatever reason, that piece of you goes into panic mode and starts screaming for you to keep it alive. I know this from personal experience.
Last year, I went through a really gut wrenching breakup. It was a long time coming, and it resulted in some very positive changes in my life. Out of all things, it brought me to a place where I felt ready to take a risk, ready to reach out to the friend I missed more than anything I’d ever lost before.
A simple text exchange made me feel complete relief. We were going to meet for coffee. But before I could see her face, the lack of tone in a text message still made me nervous. Was she going to forgive me? Did she miss me back? Was she even going to show up?
We talked for hours at the same coffee shop we had last hung out in, about three and a half years before — the last time we’d had an in person conversation. Knowing how much damage and pain was in between these two most recent face to face conversations was clearly an elephant in the room. And we addressed it, briefly. But we also were way too focused on catching up about each other’s lives to truly focus on what happened and why.
I thought, okay, cool. We’ve done it. She doesn’t hate me. She even told me about another friendship she had a falling out with on her own, and how she had herself reached out to that friend and received a negative reaction back. It doesn’t always end happily ever after, but maybe knowing the answer of what if is worth the risk regardless.
I assumed we would be on good terms, we’d bump into each other here and there, and I could rest easily knowing that she at least didn’t resent me or hate me. My expectations were low, and here we are a year later.
Since then, we’ve met each other’s new partners, we’ve traveled internationally together twice, we’ve celebrated our birthdays together after missing each other’s for the last half decade. Maybe we don’t get fucked up on the weekend, break into dance in the dollar store, or make as many ridiculous decisions together, but that is likely more a product of maturing than our friendship being any less importance than it once had. In fact, we may be closer than ever. As my therapist told me, “It’s not about the rupture, it’s about the repair.”
Real, true friends are there when things get really horrible. The break ups, the health problems, the mental breakdowns. They also forgive you when you do and say something truly terrible, and are willing to see it as minutiae in contrast to a bigger, more holistic relationship where love triumphs trivial events.
I felt like the same welcome wagon that smiled up from her desk and greeted me that first day we met at our old job was there once again when we reunited at our old favourite coffee shop that day. In the same way that everything had changed in our lives since we’d spoken last, nothing between us had changed in terms of our connection. In the same way that I’d been welcomed initially and made to feel like a cozy inhabitant in my work place, I’d now felt welcomed back into the heart of someone I truly cared about, after a deeply painful silence. This time around, the welcome had even more of an impact.
Lessons were learned, but ultimately all results are up to a personal decision and all destinations need to be arrived at upon your own leisure. I’ve learned that if you want to say sorry, just say it. I have very few regrets in life. But I do wish I’d not lost all this time in this friendship. It kills me that I spent so much time alone, being too stubborn to just apologize and too nervous to potentially face rejection and defeat.
Ghosts are only ghosts if you let them be. The moment you’re ready to wipe the glass clean and look closer, taking a deep breath and swallowing your own pride, the closer you are to unlocking the best parts of you and the best of people you share those parts with.
