A long time ago, we used to be friends

[superbadgirl]

Have you ever had someone in your life, someone you considered a very close friend...but life and circumstances just made you drift apart? My friend A. and I used to be tight, and then she moved to Milwaukee and I moved to Seattle. Obviously, things shifted and changed and our communication started coming less frequently. She got married. I haven't even met her husband.

But I knew we were no longer really friends long before all that. One year, exchanging holiday and birthday gifts, I presented her with a well thought-out gift, something that fit her tastes and personality and she gave me...an animated, musical cookie jar shaped like Scooby Doo. At that point, I remember an overwhelming urge to burst into tears right there, and a horrible thought that we might have never really been friends at all, because she honestly thought that was the perfect gift for me.

Anyway. Last night, I got one solitary piece of mail. It was from A. Inside the envelope was a birth announcement for her second baby.

I didn't even know she was pregnant again.

I'm pretty sure it's just me - I know lots of people have friends they stay in touch with since high school and/or college. I just can't seem to. I'm a fairly solitary creature, so that might be it. It depresses me, though. Even with good friends, I'll respond to emails and calls and such and get nothing in return.

We Used To Be Friends

Comments

[meg-tdj.livejournal.com]

This describes just about every friendship I've ever had, heh. I have one friend from school days that I still communicate with occasionally, but we really don't know each other very well at all, and I'm betting as soon as she gets married she'll stop trying to keep in touch even that little bit. And the saddest part is, none of us moved anywhere... I just left school to be home-taught, and didn't get married and start having babies when the others did.

I honestly think it's more rare for people to continue being friends after they leave school than it is for those relationships to fizzle out as people's lives move in different directions. It still sucks, though. :(

[superbadgirl]

Yeah, time and circumstance are two things very difficult to work with.