More Good Things Are Happening!
First of all, a thousand thanks for all the incredible kindness and good wishes on my last post, which has totally overwhelmed me, and just... thank you for being wonderful. I've always known you were excellent friends, but you continue to impress me with said excellence all the time. I don't know what I've done to deserve your friendship, but I'm so grateful it exists. &hearts
Oh, and I think I forgot to mention one other critical detail to all of you, which is that Geography Teacher is not even a little bit weirded out by fandom or fannish things. His cat is named Bellatrix, so... I suppose that detail speaks for itself. ;-)
But I have even more good news to share, because Best Friend texted me yesterday, out of the blue, saying that she was in town for some family business, and would I want to meet for lunch, even though it was short notice?
My response, of course, was a resounding HELL YES. *g* And we had an absolutely fantastic time. She had some great news to tell me, and we spent hours talking. But to fully appreciate just how awesome this all was, and how happy I was to see her, I need to fill you all in on a bit of background.
The most important thing to understand about Best Friend is that she has been wrestling with depression for some time. Within a period of about six months, as some of you might recall, she got engaged and married, moved out of the country, lost her dad, and had to cope with a horrible, invasive, emotionally abusive mother-in-law who tried to sabotage Best Friend's wedding day and then undermine her marriage. (I did not know about the attempted sabotage then. I've only just now learned the full extent of her manipulation.)
All of that would be enough to make anybody depressed, and Best Friend really was. She got to a point where she couldn't work. (She's a lawyer. The thought of going to court was suddenly overwhelming.) She didn't want to talk to anybody. She didn't want to do anything but learn how to cook and knit, because she didn't feel like she could handle anything else.
She spent most of the rest of that bad, bad time angsting about her thank you notes from her wedding.
Yeah, thank you notes. She knew she had to do them, but every time she tried, it brought back all the horrible unresolved feelings about her wedding day and her mother-in-law, so she just couldn't face it; she'd take them out and get set up to do them and then just cry and cry, because she couldn't. The longer they went undone, the more guilt got added to the heap, because then she felt like a failure for being so late. Her well-meaning mother kept calling her to remind her that she hadn't done them, and even offered to travel there so they could do them together and just get them done... but that just made Best Friend feel even more incompetent, so she judged herself even more harshly, and the cycle continued endlessly. Lather, rinse, repeat. Those silly little pieces of card stock totally became the mascot of her depression--the tangible symbol of all her feelings of failure, of being totally out of control, of being weak and helpless and unable to stand up to her mother-in-law.
She had not told me any of this. She spent the better part of a year isolating herself and feeling awful and shutting me out and pushing me away as hard as she could. After a certain point, I just... never heard from her. It was like she'd disappeared. It was like having a limb amputated; all my feelings for her--15 years worth of them--remained, but she was gone. And while I admit that a tiny part of me did wonder if I had done something wrong to make her dislike me, or if she'd made new (cooler) friends there and we'd just drifted apart, I was much, much more concerned about her being alone in a different country, away from her family, dealing with a lot of Big Stuff. I was, to be honest, worried sick about her.
I finally just started sending her texts and e-mails every now and then--not all the time, and not to pry or demand information, but just to let her know, once in a while, that I was still out there and still thought about her and still loved her very much. So I'd text her little notes like, "I thought about you today. Do you remember that time with the pigeons in Chamonix?" And I'd write her e-mails about what was going on with me, send her pictures, ask her to give my best to her family, tell her stupid jokes, tell her that I loved her and missed her. I never mentioned the fact that she never answered. I didn't want her to feel obligated to respond. As far as I could tell, the texts and e-mails were going out into some vast electronic void, or piling up in some no-longer-used e-mail inbox, or possibly even being directed into a spam folder or deleted as soon as they arrived... but they never bounced back, so I kept sending them. I wanted her to know that I cared, that I hadn't forgotten her. And of course I hoped that she'd write back one day.
And then, yesterday, she did. I do not think a word exists for the joy this gave me.
I was simultaneously ridiculously excited to see her--and strangely nervous. We've always had the sort of friendship where we could be in different places and yet always connect as though no time or geographic distance were in the way, and yet I suddenly felt a strange flicker of fear that maybe it wouldn't happen that way this time, and that maybe too much had changed.
It was a stupid worry. We recognized each other right away (she looked good and HAPPY, which made my heart happy) and tried to squeeze each other to death via enthusiastic hugging, after perhaps 30 seconds of awkwardness. It was wonderful. I'm sure we made a scene, and I don't care; it was worth it.
After we'd finished glomping, we sat down to lunch, which was lovely, and went for tea, which was also lovely, and we talked. A lot. Mostly I let Best Friend talk, because she had a lot to say, a lot that she'd been holding inside her (see: most of what I explained to you up above), a lot that she needed to get out into the air so it couldn't fester in her head anymore.
So she told me her story, including all the things I hadn't known and she hadn't been able to say. She and her husband got counseling from a very savvy therapist (and fellow MSU alum!), eventually, which is the best thing they could have done for themselves. Because of it, Best Friend has had support while working through her depression and grief, and her husband has had support as he's been wrestling to get over all the emotional scars his mother and her manipulative ways have left on him, and they've felt completely in tune with and devoted to each other as they've worked out ways to dramatically reduce Mother-in-law's ability to interfere in their lives. (They've decided it's them against the world; she has no power over them anymore.) Their marriage has never been healthier, and they're both feeling so much better, and things are looking really good for them.
And to top it all off, her husband just accepted a job offer with a practice in Lansing. Which is only, at the most, a two hour drive away. It is, of course, also where Best Friend and I first met each other all those years ago, in our second week of classes at MSU. It's very familiar and beloved territory. It's so much closer to home and family. They can see her family often. We can visit each other often. They'll have an important border between them and his mother, which means they'll feel much freer to start a family of their own. It is awfully close to an ideal outcome.
She told me all of these things, over the course of the afternoon, and I was thrilled to death: that they've had help and they're feeling better, that they've figured out emotionally healthy ways to deal with his mother, that Best Friend looks good and contented, that they're going to be HERE again soon enough, that she'd answered my text and we were together having a nice lunch and it was just like old times. I was just so happy to have her back in my life, and to know that she was okay, that I just wanted to bask in her presence all afternoon.
And then she said to me, out of the blue, "I'm sorry I'm such a shitty friend."
I was kind of stunned. And then I said that she wasn't, and I said so, and that I'd never had shitty taste in my life, so she couldn't argue with me on that point.
She laughed at that, but then she stopped and looked at me and said very seriously, "I hope you can forgive me for not sending you a thank you note. I hope you'll still be my friend."
I couldn't believe she'd actually said that, had actually feared that I'd be angry with her over something so trivial. As if I would throw away a friendship over a thank you note! As if I'd even care! I'd never be upset about that in a million years, and it certainly would never have occurred to me to be offended, particularly when all I was doing was worrying about her and her husband. And then I felt terribly sad to know how much guilt she'd been carrying, to think that she could ever believe I'd judge her or hold that against her. How could she have ever been afraid that my love for her might be conditional?
I wouldn't judge ANYBODY for that, much less my best friend.
I didn't want to be dismissive or tell her that her fears were silly, so I just told her that of course I understood, and there was nothing for me to forgive. (If anything, she needs to forgive herself; she's still at the point where it's hard for her to separate what was the fault of the disease from her own perceived sense of personal "failure.") I said that anybody who could hold a missed thank you note against her would be a failure of a human being--and in any case, there is nothing that she could ever do to make me not love her and be her friend.
I genuinely cannot conceive of anything she could do that would drive me away. My imagination fails at that task. It's just not possible.
And she smiled and thanked me--no thanks necessary, honestly!--and we spent the rest of the time talking about Geography Teacher-related developments, and also books and movies and our families and where I got my skull ring and hair care and Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones, and then it truly was like old times. (In my head and my heart, I still think of us as 18 years old and full of promise. I think we always will be, at least around each other.)
And before we parted ways, we hugged again, and promised to do it again soon. (We're both counting the days until next year, when it will be even easier to meet whenever we'd like.) And she thanked me for sending those e-mails and texts. She said that even though she couldn't bring herself to answer them, she'd read them and kept them all, and it had been very good to know that she wasn't forgotten, even though she couldn't understand why I hadn't given up on her.
As if I ever could. That's not how friendship works! I'm just grateful she's back in my life.
So. Yes. Good things aboundeth. And now I'm off to turn a large amount of lemons into the Lemon Lemons Loaf from the Baked cookbook. Only I'm planning to add a lemon glaze, so they'll be Lemon Lemon Lemon Loaves. Wish me luck!
And big hugs and love to all of you, as ever.
Oh, and I think I forgot to mention one other critical detail to all of you, which is that Geography Teacher is not even a little bit weirded out by fandom or fannish things. His cat is named Bellatrix, so... I suppose that detail speaks for itself. ;-)
But I have even more good news to share, because Best Friend texted me yesterday, out of the blue, saying that she was in town for some family business, and would I want to meet for lunch, even though it was short notice?
My response, of course, was a resounding HELL YES. *g* And we had an absolutely fantastic time. She had some great news to tell me, and we spent hours talking. But to fully appreciate just how awesome this all was, and how happy I was to see her, I need to fill you all in on a bit of background.
The most important thing to understand about Best Friend is that she has been wrestling with depression for some time. Within a period of about six months, as some of you might recall, she got engaged and married, moved out of the country, lost her dad, and had to cope with a horrible, invasive, emotionally abusive mother-in-law who tried to sabotage Best Friend's wedding day and then undermine her marriage. (I did not know about the attempted sabotage then. I've only just now learned the full extent of her manipulation.)
All of that would be enough to make anybody depressed, and Best Friend really was. She got to a point where she couldn't work. (She's a lawyer. The thought of going to court was suddenly overwhelming.) She didn't want to talk to anybody. She didn't want to do anything but learn how to cook and knit, because she didn't feel like she could handle anything else.
She spent most of the rest of that bad, bad time angsting about her thank you notes from her wedding.
Yeah, thank you notes. She knew she had to do them, but every time she tried, it brought back all the horrible unresolved feelings about her wedding day and her mother-in-law, so she just couldn't face it; she'd take them out and get set up to do them and then just cry and cry, because she couldn't. The longer they went undone, the more guilt got added to the heap, because then she felt like a failure for being so late. Her well-meaning mother kept calling her to remind her that she hadn't done them, and even offered to travel there so they could do them together and just get them done... but that just made Best Friend feel even more incompetent, so she judged herself even more harshly, and the cycle continued endlessly. Lather, rinse, repeat. Those silly little pieces of card stock totally became the mascot of her depression--the tangible symbol of all her feelings of failure, of being totally out of control, of being weak and helpless and unable to stand up to her mother-in-law.
She had not told me any of this. She spent the better part of a year isolating herself and feeling awful and shutting me out and pushing me away as hard as she could. After a certain point, I just... never heard from her. It was like she'd disappeared. It was like having a limb amputated; all my feelings for her--15 years worth of them--remained, but she was gone. And while I admit that a tiny part of me did wonder if I had done something wrong to make her dislike me, or if she'd made new (cooler) friends there and we'd just drifted apart, I was much, much more concerned about her being alone in a different country, away from her family, dealing with a lot of Big Stuff. I was, to be honest, worried sick about her.
I finally just started sending her texts and e-mails every now and then--not all the time, and not to pry or demand information, but just to let her know, once in a while, that I was still out there and still thought about her and still loved her very much. So I'd text her little notes like, "I thought about you today. Do you remember that time with the pigeons in Chamonix?" And I'd write her e-mails about what was going on with me, send her pictures, ask her to give my best to her family, tell her stupid jokes, tell her that I loved her and missed her. I never mentioned the fact that she never answered. I didn't want her to feel obligated to respond. As far as I could tell, the texts and e-mails were going out into some vast electronic void, or piling up in some no-longer-used e-mail inbox, or possibly even being directed into a spam folder or deleted as soon as they arrived... but they never bounced back, so I kept sending them. I wanted her to know that I cared, that I hadn't forgotten her. And of course I hoped that she'd write back one day.
And then, yesterday, she did. I do not think a word exists for the joy this gave me.
I was simultaneously ridiculously excited to see her--and strangely nervous. We've always had the sort of friendship where we could be in different places and yet always connect as though no time or geographic distance were in the way, and yet I suddenly felt a strange flicker of fear that maybe it wouldn't happen that way this time, and that maybe too much had changed.
It was a stupid worry. We recognized each other right away (she looked good and HAPPY, which made my heart happy) and tried to squeeze each other to death via enthusiastic hugging, after perhaps 30 seconds of awkwardness. It was wonderful. I'm sure we made a scene, and I don't care; it was worth it.
After we'd finished glomping, we sat down to lunch, which was lovely, and went for tea, which was also lovely, and we talked. A lot. Mostly I let Best Friend talk, because she had a lot to say, a lot that she'd been holding inside her (see: most of what I explained to you up above), a lot that she needed to get out into the air so it couldn't fester in her head anymore.
So she told me her story, including all the things I hadn't known and she hadn't been able to say. She and her husband got counseling from a very savvy therapist (and fellow MSU alum!), eventually, which is the best thing they could have done for themselves. Because of it, Best Friend has had support while working through her depression and grief, and her husband has had support as he's been wrestling to get over all the emotional scars his mother and her manipulative ways have left on him, and they've felt completely in tune with and devoted to each other as they've worked out ways to dramatically reduce Mother-in-law's ability to interfere in their lives. (They've decided it's them against the world; she has no power over them anymore.) Their marriage has never been healthier, and they're both feeling so much better, and things are looking really good for them.
And to top it all off, her husband just accepted a job offer with a practice in Lansing. Which is only, at the most, a two hour drive away. It is, of course, also where Best Friend and I first met each other all those years ago, in our second week of classes at MSU. It's very familiar and beloved territory. It's so much closer to home and family. They can see her family often. We can visit each other often. They'll have an important border between them and his mother, which means they'll feel much freer to start a family of their own. It is awfully close to an ideal outcome.
She told me all of these things, over the course of the afternoon, and I was thrilled to death: that they've had help and they're feeling better, that they've figured out emotionally healthy ways to deal with his mother, that Best Friend looks good and contented, that they're going to be HERE again soon enough, that she'd answered my text and we were together having a nice lunch and it was just like old times. I was just so happy to have her back in my life, and to know that she was okay, that I just wanted to bask in her presence all afternoon.
And then she said to me, out of the blue, "I'm sorry I'm such a shitty friend."
I was kind of stunned. And then I said that she wasn't, and I said so, and that I'd never had shitty taste in my life, so she couldn't argue with me on that point.
She laughed at that, but then she stopped and looked at me and said very seriously, "I hope you can forgive me for not sending you a thank you note. I hope you'll still be my friend."
I couldn't believe she'd actually said that, had actually feared that I'd be angry with her over something so trivial. As if I would throw away a friendship over a thank you note! As if I'd even care! I'd never be upset about that in a million years, and it certainly would never have occurred to me to be offended, particularly when all I was doing was worrying about her and her husband. And then I felt terribly sad to know how much guilt she'd been carrying, to think that she could ever believe I'd judge her or hold that against her. How could she have ever been afraid that my love for her might be conditional?
I wouldn't judge ANYBODY for that, much less my best friend.
I didn't want to be dismissive or tell her that her fears were silly, so I just told her that of course I understood, and there was nothing for me to forgive. (If anything, she needs to forgive herself; she's still at the point where it's hard for her to separate what was the fault of the disease from her own perceived sense of personal "failure.") I said that anybody who could hold a missed thank you note against her would be a failure of a human being--and in any case, there is nothing that she could ever do to make me not love her and be her friend.
I genuinely cannot conceive of anything she could do that would drive me away. My imagination fails at that task. It's just not possible.
And she smiled and thanked me--no thanks necessary, honestly!--and we spent the rest of the time talking about Geography Teacher-related developments, and also books and movies and our families and where I got my skull ring and hair care and Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones, and then it truly was like old times. (In my head and my heart, I still think of us as 18 years old and full of promise. I think we always will be, at least around each other.)
And before we parted ways, we hugged again, and promised to do it again soon. (We're both counting the days until next year, when it will be even easier to meet whenever we'd like.) And she thanked me for sending those e-mails and texts. She said that even though she couldn't bring herself to answer them, she'd read them and kept them all, and it had been very good to know that she wasn't forgotten, even though she couldn't understand why I hadn't given up on her.
As if I ever could. That's not how friendship works! I'm just grateful she's back in my life.
So. Yes. Good things aboundeth. And now I'm off to turn a large amount of lemons into the Lemon Lemons Loaf from the Baked cookbook. Only I'm planning to add a lemon glaze, so they'll be Lemon Lemon Lemon Loaves. Wish me luck!
And big hugs and love to all of you, as ever.