Retired

I’m stewing a bit. I got an email this morning reminding me once again that I am a bad friend and a terrible person and that I hate babies and sunshine and all that is good and sweet and pure in the world. At least, this was the subtext. I think.

It’s a question I’ve mulled over here before, instigated by similar happenings in the past with the same person that this always comes up with. And I wonder--when do you just let a friendship go? When is it no longer worth fighting for?

This time I think I am pretty much done with it.

I am so tired of apologizing. I am so tired of navigating the emotional minefield. I am tired of trying to guess what is the right way, the best way, the only way to be a friend to my friend.

It makes me sad because we have been friends for over twenty-five years. That’s a long time. And I know, knowing her, that if the friendship ends I will never hear from her again. I will never see her, I will never know how her family is, I will never see her toddler or the one on the way make their way into childhood then adolescence then adulthood. I will be cleanly and systematically eliminated from her life. I’ve watched her do it to others.

She’s very good at it.