rebecca's wedding / my breakdown-realization that I desperately want to know her
what an emotionally battering day.
My used-to-be-best-friend and sister-in-law Rebecca got married this morning. She was planning on next year, but about a month ago decided to go ahead and do it now. I didn't post about it because I shoved it firmly out of my mind -- but obviously I couldn't ignore the reality of it today. Fortunately Hannah just 'happened' to call me yesterday on my lunch, and we talked the entire hour, and I processed a little of my feelings about Rebecca getting married. I hadn't even thought about it until then -- all I knew was that it made me uncomfortable. I thank GOD we had that talk, because if we hadn't, I might well have suppressed all my feelings and eeshk, but I am sorry for the incoherence, I'll try to sum up.
Rebecca was my best friend through middle & high school; we were so incredibly close. We called each other every day and talked for at least 30 minutes, usually hours, and even wrote each other letters despite living relatively close. We spent as much time together as our parents would chaffeur us for. We were as open and honest with each other as we knew how to be. We had no intentional secrets. And there was so much love. Without Rebecca I am pretty sure I'd be dead -- she was the only really loving person in my life for so long, and my teen years were so dark (my family looked so nice on the outside but DAMN it was fucked up, way more than I realized at the time). Anyway, we shared ourselves with each other without restraint, but we both had blocked off parts of ourselves that we didn't know about. I didn't realize that I had done that until years later, but when I realized that I only knew the surface of Rebecca it shattered my trust in her, even though it really wasn't her fault. Then about a month later I moved to PA, which SHE felt as a betrayal, and though I wrote to her long and often at first, she didn't respond much, which I felt as abandonment and we just drifted more. Then six months after that, Ben and I fell in love and she felt even more left out and betrayed and that was pretty much the end of us. We tried a few times at re-connecting after I moved back to GA, but it never worked because we both changed so much and we both resisted the change in each other.
We used to daydream about how we'd grow up and buy a house out in the middle of the woods, with a clearing nearby that we could go and dance in at night, and we'd just live together and be happy hermits. I recently realized that a part of me still hoped for that -- even now, after years of separation.
I now realize why Rebecca looked so miserable in my wedding pictures. At the time I didn't get it, because we'd already been split up for years at that point, but today I felt the same way she did -- like my heart was being ripped out. In a completely platonic but very deep way, I love her, and don't want to share, don't want her to choose someone over me. I feel like we were married and separated for a long time, but I always expected us to eventually get back together and now she's divorced me to marry someone else. Even though I did it first and it's completely illogical, that is exactly how I feel. And she's moving to New Mexico this weekend. It all feels so terribly final, terribly terribly.
So I went to the wedding to escape familial strife, though I expected heartbreak. I was relieved to find that she didn't have any bridesmaids (it was a very informal outdoor wedding) because it would have just been too much to have two people chosen over me, and I had been depressed that she didn't ask me, sure that she had asked elya. It took me like two hours after the ceremony to find a moment and the courage to ask her to talk to me, but I finally did, and she and I walked away from the crowd. I can't even metaphorize my feelings then, not properly. How do you say to the love of (a chunk of) your life, "Don't leave me!" when she already has? and my mind protested the whole way that this is so stupid and selfish, but my heart and spirit and soul screamed so loudly that I didn't even hear it. So I just poured out my heart, and she listened compassionately -- my God, how could I have forgotten her ability to listen? She makes other listeners seem like they are sticking their fingers in their ears (with very few exceptions). I wanted to just ... I don't even know. Fall to my knees and beg forgiveness for not understanding? Not trying harder?
Why do all (but one) of my friends live so far away? WHY did it take her marrying and moving cross-country for me to realize that I still love her and that the fact that we no longer have anything in common is irrelevant? I do think a part of that is just that I have Hannah as my soulfriend now, and that has increased my ability to love at least threefold. I can afford to spend love on people who (possibly) are unable to fill my relational desires. It's really amazing. I also never realized just how wonderful alariya is until after I became soulfriends with Hannah.
I feel such heartbreak at losing Rebecca. She was my best friend. She never ever judged me; I felt completely safe with her. I don't understand how a person can be that completely accepting/understanding... and at that point in my life, when I was judged constantly/cruelly by everyone else, that was such a gift from God. I don't even know her now; that hurts the most. How can I not know her? How is that even possible? But I don't know the first thing about the now-Rebecca, and then-Rebecca was shed a long time ago, but I am still in love with her spirit. How could I not realize that?
She listened to me stutterstumblesob and hugged me a few times and agreed that I was feeling the way she did at my wedding. She said she wanted to be friends again, that she thought that it just hadn't been the right time for us to get back together because she had been so caught up in her life and I'd been caught up in mine, but that she was willing to try now. She said she'd write a lot of letters (which my untrusting inner self crossed her arms and quirked a brow at) because she was, after all, going to a place where she knew no one but her husband. She was so calm and composed, which confused and disappointed me a little -- I didn't want to upset her, but I wanted more of an emotional reaction, I think. I asked if she was just very happy or had a wall of polite kindness up (or something to that effect) and she said she was just happy, there was no wall, and I looked into her eyes and felt such desperation at not even knowing her enough to know the difference. She said something about having never stopped loving me, and I just couldn't talk, but I wanted to scream, because I couldn't believe her and I wanted to, needed to. Finally I had to go, and I asked if there was any chance she'd have time to talk tomorrow. She said that she had to get her stuff moved, but she would try to do that in the morning, and I could come over sometime after noon and she would talk with me for as long as I wanted (my heart did a flip) as long as she got stuff done, and she could do stuff while we talked. My heart is in knots, I have a constant lump in my throat, my eyes are red, my lips are puffy, I am so nervous and scared. What if I don't like the new her? What if she isn't the unjudgemental person she used to be? And the real issue -- what if she doesn't like the new me? I feel so sure she won't, I'm terrified. What if Trevor gets mad that I'm taking up her time? What if she changes her mind about spending time with me and cancels?
Worst of all, what if it just flops and fails like all the other times we tried to renew our friendship?
the rest of the day... I had to work and they wouldn'twouldn't let me go so I could spend time with everyone else, finally did when I had 2.5 hours left to work but it left me a guiltynervous wreck crying with fury and disappointment at the lack of care; Ben went swimming with the phone so don't try to call me (hopefully it'll work when it dries); the movie we were going to go to with the whole family was sold out; and I have been unable to calm down. I'm shakey, inside and out. But for all the pain, something about crying today felt so right, like washing out a wound. . . . tomorrow's the full moon.
My used-to-be-best-friend and sister-in-law Rebecca got married this morning. She was planning on next year, but about a month ago decided to go ahead and do it now. I didn't post about it because I shoved it firmly out of my mind -- but obviously I couldn't ignore the reality of it today. Fortunately Hannah just 'happened' to call me yesterday on my lunch, and we talked the entire hour, and I processed a little of my feelings about Rebecca getting married. I hadn't even thought about it until then -- all I knew was that it made me uncomfortable. I thank GOD we had that talk, because if we hadn't, I might well have suppressed all my feelings and eeshk, but I am sorry for the incoherence, I'll try to sum up.
Rebecca was my best friend through middle & high school; we were so incredibly close. We called each other every day and talked for at least 30 minutes, usually hours, and even wrote each other letters despite living relatively close. We spent as much time together as our parents would chaffeur us for. We were as open and honest with each other as we knew how to be. We had no intentional secrets. And there was so much love. Without Rebecca I am pretty sure I'd be dead -- she was the only really loving person in my life for so long, and my teen years were so dark (my family looked so nice on the outside but DAMN it was fucked up, way more than I realized at the time). Anyway, we shared ourselves with each other without restraint, but we both had blocked off parts of ourselves that we didn't know about. I didn't realize that I had done that until years later, but when I realized that I only knew the surface of Rebecca it shattered my trust in her, even though it really wasn't her fault. Then about a month later I moved to PA, which SHE felt as a betrayal, and though I wrote to her long and often at first, she didn't respond much, which I felt as abandonment and we just drifted more. Then six months after that, Ben and I fell in love and she felt even more left out and betrayed and that was pretty much the end of us. We tried a few times at re-connecting after I moved back to GA, but it never worked because we both changed so much and we both resisted the change in each other.
We used to daydream about how we'd grow up and buy a house out in the middle of the woods, with a clearing nearby that we could go and dance in at night, and we'd just live together and be happy hermits. I recently realized that a part of me still hoped for that -- even now, after years of separation.
I now realize why Rebecca looked so miserable in my wedding pictures. At the time I didn't get it, because we'd already been split up for years at that point, but today I felt the same way she did -- like my heart was being ripped out. In a completely platonic but very deep way, I love her, and don't want to share, don't want her to choose someone over me. I feel like we were married and separated for a long time, but I always expected us to eventually get back together and now she's divorced me to marry someone else. Even though I did it first and it's completely illogical, that is exactly how I feel. And she's moving to New Mexico this weekend. It all feels so terribly final, terribly terribly.
So I went to the wedding to escape familial strife, though I expected heartbreak. I was relieved to find that she didn't have any bridesmaids (it was a very informal outdoor wedding) because it would have just been too much to have two people chosen over me, and I had been depressed that she didn't ask me, sure that she had asked elya. It took me like two hours after the ceremony to find a moment and the courage to ask her to talk to me, but I finally did, and she and I walked away from the crowd. I can't even metaphorize my feelings then, not properly. How do you say to the love of (a chunk of) your life, "Don't leave me!" when she already has? and my mind protested the whole way that this is so stupid and selfish, but my heart and spirit and soul screamed so loudly that I didn't even hear it. So I just poured out my heart, and she listened compassionately -- my God, how could I have forgotten her ability to listen? She makes other listeners seem like they are sticking their fingers in their ears (with very few exceptions). I wanted to just ... I don't even know. Fall to my knees and beg forgiveness for not understanding? Not trying harder?
Why do all (but one) of my friends live so far away? WHY did it take her marrying and moving cross-country for me to realize that I still love her and that the fact that we no longer have anything in common is irrelevant? I do think a part of that is just that I have Hannah as my soulfriend now, and that has increased my ability to love at least threefold. I can afford to spend love on people who (possibly) are unable to fill my relational desires. It's really amazing. I also never realized just how wonderful alariya is until after I became soulfriends with Hannah.
I feel such heartbreak at losing Rebecca. She was my best friend. She never ever judged me; I felt completely safe with her. I don't understand how a person can be that completely accepting/understanding... and at that point in my life, when I was judged constantly/cruelly by everyone else, that was such a gift from God. I don't even know her now; that hurts the most. How can I not know her? How is that even possible? But I don't know the first thing about the now-Rebecca, and then-Rebecca was shed a long time ago, but I am still in love with her spirit. How could I not realize that?
She listened to me stutterstumblesob and hugged me a few times and agreed that I was feeling the way she did at my wedding. She said she wanted to be friends again, that she thought that it just hadn't been the right time for us to get back together because she had been so caught up in her life and I'd been caught up in mine, but that she was willing to try now. She said she'd write a lot of letters (which my untrusting inner self crossed her arms and quirked a brow at) because she was, after all, going to a place where she knew no one but her husband. She was so calm and composed, which confused and disappointed me a little -- I didn't want to upset her, but I wanted more of an emotional reaction, I think. I asked if she was just very happy or had a wall of polite kindness up (or something to that effect) and she said she was just happy, there was no wall, and I looked into her eyes and felt such desperation at not even knowing her enough to know the difference. She said something about having never stopped loving me, and I just couldn't talk, but I wanted to scream, because I couldn't believe her and I wanted to, needed to. Finally I had to go, and I asked if there was any chance she'd have time to talk tomorrow. She said that she had to get her stuff moved, but she would try to do that in the morning, and I could come over sometime after noon and she would talk with me for as long as I wanted (my heart did a flip) as long as she got stuff done, and she could do stuff while we talked. My heart is in knots, I have a constant lump in my throat, my eyes are red, my lips are puffy, I am so nervous and scared. What if I don't like the new her? What if she isn't the unjudgemental person she used to be? And the real issue -- what if she doesn't like the new me? I feel so sure she won't, I'm terrified. What if Trevor gets mad that I'm taking up her time? What if she changes her mind about spending time with me and cancels?
Worst of all, what if it just flops and fails like all the other times we tried to renew our friendship?
the rest of the day... I had to work and they wouldn'twouldn't let me go so I could spend time with everyone else, finally did when I had 2.5 hours left to work but it left me a guiltynervous wreck crying with fury and disappointment at the lack of care; Ben went swimming with the phone so don't try to call me (hopefully it'll work when it dries); the movie we were going to go to with the whole family was sold out; and I have been unable to calm down. I'm shakey, inside and out. But for all the pain, something about crying today felt so right, like washing out a wound. . . . tomorrow's the full moon.