This post isn’t going to be one of my usual “funnies”, but I hope you’ll read on anyway:
Sometime around 9:00pm the “hustle” at my job slows, not as many customers to wait on, no lab orders coming in. I was asked to pull sale signs, which is where I suddenly realized just how horrible losing my best friend actually is.
A young girl, maybe 21 or 22, darts from aisle to aisle, randomly picking up items from the shelves. I smiled at her as I am supposed to, and I asked her if she needed help finding anything. She said “no thank you” and smiled back, her selections in her arms overflowing and nearly falling on the floor.
She walks in to the next aisle, where she is approached by a man whom I can only assume is a new boyfriend. She says something to him which I cannot hear, and he says back to her “you’ll need a toothbrush.”
I only took notice of the items in her arms as I entered the toothbrush aisle as she struggled to grab the one she wanted off the peg hook, her arms overflowing. A blue toothbrush, a bottle of mouthwash, a sample sized shampoo and conditioner, a bottle of body wash, two items from the freezer, which I am assuming is her and her boyfriend’s dinner for the night, a bottle of Pepsi, and a box of condoms. It doesn’t sound like much, but seeing her with her arms overflowing, struggling to get her toothbrush, it broke my heart just a little bit more.
When it was my turn to make the mad dash for overnight items at a boyfriend’s house, we were at KMart. The “boyfriend” had just moved in to his apartment that day, so he had nothing. He ran through KMart and bought pillows, food, coffee for the morning, soda, toothpaste and mouthwash, you know, the essentials. I ran through the aisles and grabbed a tee shirt to sleep in, a toothbrush, a magazine (because I am addicted to fashion mags), shampoo and conditioner, body wash, all the things that I would need in the morning that I knew he wouldn’t have or that he would have but was designed for a man (I don’t want my hair to smell like a dude’s).
We slept on an air mattress on the floor. There was no television, no form of entertainment other than conversation and unmentionables that I won’t discuss here. It was new and exciting. I didn’t care that my back was sore from sleeping on the floor. I didn’t care that the apartment was dark as a cave. I was happy to be there with him.
The “relationship” part didn’t work out. We both have things in our lives that prevent us from continuing a “relationship”. He and I became best friends instead. I can honestly say that when I think of him, I feel a physical reaction, and no, sickos, it’s not THAT kind of physical reaction. I feel it in my heart. When I think of him, my heart smiles. I know it sounds stupid, but as I sit here typing this and my eyes tear up, I feel him in my heart. Do I love him, you ask? I absolutely do. I love him beyond a “relationship”. It’s more than a sexual thing, I could go the rest of my life without having sex with him and I would be completely content with the conversation. I NEED him like I NEED air. I NEED to know that he is there. I could say a million words to him without ever opening my mouth. It’s rather poetic, actually.
Well, his life has taken another path, and I am no longer a part of it. It hurts me when I am snarky to him, but I can’t stop. I want him to know how badly he is hurting me every day that he doesn’t call or text. I want him to explain to me how I burn every day without him in my life while he seems to continue living without a care in the world. Was I a better friend to him than he was to me? Did I care more for him than he cared for me? How can he not feel the same way that I do? My heart literally hurts.
Before all of this, if someone had asked me if I had ever had my heart broken, I would have answered “absolutely.” My heart has been broken a million times. This thing with my former best friend, however, hurts more than when my parents divorced. It hurts more than when my boyfriend of 4 years cheated on me. It hurts more than when my father and his girlfriend forced me out of their house. It killed me when my grandfather died, but he didn’t choose to leave me. I found solice in the fact that if he had had a choice, he would have stayed with us forever. Best friend, however, has a choice. He chose to leave, and I think that hurts more.
I feel for the girl that made her mad dash last night. I hope everything works out for her with this guy. I hope she marries him and has his babies and they live happily ever after. I wouldn’t wish this kind of pain on anyone. I’m not sad that I didn’t marry best friend. I’m not sad that I didn’t have his babies. I am, however, crushed without him. I had a better relationship with him than a lot of married couples have. A year of this pain later, and I realize that I am still having a hard time adjusting to my life without him in it. 10 years is a long time to invest in another human being. 10 years gives you enough time to grow so attached that the person feels like a living, breathing part of yourself. A part of me died along with the death of our friendship. I spent 1/3 of my life devoted to someone deeper than I have ever been devoted to anyone who didn’t share my bloodline. And now, I am left with nothing.
So, what becomes of the broken hearted? They write blogs in the hopes that the best friend will happen past it one day while browsing the Interweb. They hope that when the best friend sees and reads the blog, he will call. They hope that one day they will be sitting in their bedroom watching Harvey Birdman for the hundredth time and there will be a knock on their door. They hope that the woman that best friend is seeing now will break up their relationship so best friend will have “time” to come back. They hope that best friend will wake up one morning and realize how much life sucks without their best friend. Alas, I don’t think that will happen for me. Besides that, being the distrusting person that I am (which only hurts more because I put so much trust in him and he hurt me), I will never trust him not to do this to me again. There will always be a guard up now, even if he did come crawling back. He has changed me, and not in a good way. I could easily become closer to one of my remaining friends and replace him, but I will never trust them to not do the same thing to me.
The part that hurts the most is that he and I were so similar in personality. Our tastes are the same. He’s like the male version of me. So this means that if we are so similar, then that means there’s a possibility that I could inflict this kind of pain on someone and not have a care in the world about it. Well, my resolve is to not let that happen. Ever.
phuktneurotic 