Nic Narrates

When you think you may be losing a friend- a good friend…your very best friend- there isn’t much help for it.

You cry and make ugly faces. You get angry and make even more ugly faces. You drink. You go into the day with the best intentions. You get your hopes up. You commiserate with anyone who will listen. You forget what has actually happened, have lost track of the “she said” and “I said” and then “she” so “I”s. You want to reach out again- maybe it will make the difference this time- but you respect her need for even inexplicable silence and space from you. You cry again when another day closes and nothing has improved. You drink some more. And there is no help for it.

Losing a good friend- when they’re a really good friend- is like losing a part of yourself. Some people cope with the loss, the process of “losing,” by pushing that friend even farther away. Some people “write the friend off.” Some people wallow and struggle to maintain perspective- Hi. My name is Nic and I am a wallower.

There isn’t much help for the sadness that prevails when you’re losing a friend. When you wash everything else away, strip the details down, focus on just the facts, and then not even those either. When you recognize that it isn’t a matter of pride, of being right or wrong. When you refuse to even stand on principle; the fallacy of being the hurt party, so how could you have also hurt her? When you bare your heart and feel only what it tells you. You love and you mourn. And, there’s no help for it.

I’ve lost friends before. I will lose friends again. But the loss of a good friend- even the apparent loss of my very best friend….I go quiet with the lack of words for it. I hurt inside. Keenly.

I remember the time we dressed up like Blair and Serena for Halloween and reenacted their cat fight at Yale. I remember bonding and sharing secrets over wine. I remember making up silly words and even sillier songs and giving each other nick names that no one else seems to understand or find hilarious. I remember our tradition of making Thanksgiving Turkeys. I remember our inability to ever rent an even half-way decent movie and how we continually outdo ourselves- in no particular order of cringe-inducing glory: The House Bunny, Year One, Bruno, It’s All About Steve, and When in Rome. I remember making hats for The Royal Wedding and going for afternoon tea.  I remember Igloo Technology. I remember traveling to San Francisco and Napa and drinking ALL OF THE WINE with you. I remember my earlier reference to wine in this same paragraph and pretend to be embarrassed by it.

More than anything, I remember the laughter, love, and support- real, honest to goodness support of the kind that hugs you even when you have Day Three hair and you’ve cried your make-up off and insist you don’t want to be hugged but you crumple anyway. Trite perhaps, but you can’t lose without first loving.

Fancy, I love you and miss you.

Filed under: crossroads, friends, in memory, quiet desperation, wakefulness by Nic