I was a departure from your lifestyle.
A friend who didn't look like your other friends
Who didn't act like your other friends
Who didn't worship like your other friends
Who didn't judge like your other friends
Who didn't expect perfection of you like your other friends
Our parents lived around the corner from each other, yet we had to travel to London to get to know each other.
Maybe if we had stayed across the ocean, we would have stayed friends.
You got married.
I got married.
You got divorced.
You got remarried.
I got divorced.
I got remarried.
See? We are the same I might think, but we are totally not.
I stood fiercely by you during your divorce
Standing up for you in grocery stores
Standing up for you at church
Standing up for you to newspaper reporters
Standing up for you to anyone who would listen
You were so blatantly wronged
Hurt and humiliated
The pity people felt for you was more judgment for your lack thereof.
But me? The wrong against me was more subtle.
I was married to such a nice guy.
I was married to the guy who helped everyone out.
Everyone but me.
He didn't leave me for a priest
He didn't leave me for someone twice his age
He didn't emotionally abuse me
But he didn't love me
He didn't support me
He didn't listen to me
He didn't respect me
He didn't honor or protect me
Like my momma said, he left our marriage way before I kicked him out.
You couldn't see any of that though
You didn't want to see any of that
You refused to listen openly to my heart and my hurt.
I had disrupted your life
I had made it uncomfortable for you
I had created a division in your circle of friends
I had neglected to think about how my divorce would affect you.
Silly me.
What really got me though was when I moved on too quickly for your liking
You judged me
You condemned me
A year later, you dismissed me, telling me,
"You aren't sad enough."
Then I knew. I knew why we had been friends in the first place.
One of my gifts is the ability to make others feel good about themselves.
It fits into the peace-keeping, people-pleasing side of me.
I had always made you feel better about yourself,
but not for the reasons I thought.
I made you feel better because you thought you were better.
You were thinner.
You made more money.
You read more.
You knitted.
You painted.
You were better than me
and worse than me at the same time.
You were miserable, but I was always worse off
Your life was hard, but I was always in more debt
You deserved pity, but I was always there to be in a hole a little bit deeper than yours.
Next to me, you felt like a raging success
And then I had to go and get happy
Through a trial that would have broken most people
I come through it blissfully happy.
You were a terrible friend.
I hold you up as the standard now when I evaluate friendships.
I think about the time I spent with you and how I felt afterwards
In order to avoid those feelings
In order to avoid those people
In order to remain blissfully happy.
I should forgive you
I must forgive you
I will forgive you
