How do female friendships endure motherhood, patriarchy, a global pandemic, multiple wars, political divisiveness aimed at minorities, LGBTQ+ and women, intergenerational trauma (if not other trauma) and peri/menopause? How do we show up for one another while working full time (at least) jobs, possibly attending to parents, children, partners, co-workers, and other relationships, integrate self-care, balance our financial wellbeing, and maintain our own health? How do we communicate in the technological landscape of acronyms, emojis, apps, and social media? Where IRL (in real life) can be a shared public space with someone or a Facetime on our phones? How do we find or keep our people when we avoid phone calls, meetups, and substitute relationships for keeping up with influencers and listening to TIKTOK therapists?
These are just some of the questions that grief has evoked. This cognitive space of looking for answers or meaning or understanding while navigating the heartbreak of friendship loss. And possibly I am avoiding the unanswerable question of how did we get here, to where things are ending? My partner is asking me several times a day if I am okay. He admits that he knows I am not. I am sure it is his way of saying “I am here, I see your pain and I am sad you are navigating this.” He like others want to be optimistic, “maybe it can be repaired,” “maybe she just needs some time”,” maybe she will see it differently with some space.” He wants it to be a life preserver in my despair and maybe all these things could be true for her. But for me, it is irrevocably broken, and it deserves to be grieved.
I interrupt myself with the idea that I promised to be there forever and she did the same. Of course, it was easy to make promises in the glow of happiness it is harder to keep those promises in the darkness of apathy. Nostalgia interrupts my peace and I reminisce about our amusement in strangers’ assumptions that we were a couple. We even proclaimed our commitment to living together if we outlived our husbands. We mused with humour about aging together, convinced it would be something we would navigate. We quietly avoided the idea that one day we would die and leave the other behind. That may have been more painful than the thought of widowhood. Nostalgia has a way of dropping context and leaving out the painful parts that were also shared, the signposts of what was to come if we only paid attention.
I am reminded that endings come in so many forms and for so many reasons. Even as the differences, conflicts, and disagreements crept in and built up, we stayed. Maybe we believed we were obligated to endure, maybe I believed that. I was willing to twist and bend and even contort myself, my beliefs, my values, without breaking, to preserve the promises of forever. As women, the messaging we grew up with, to be generous at our own expense, to provide unwavering care in any and all circumstances, and to ensure that we are perceived as good (whatever the fuck that means), created unrealistic expectations. Maybe those lifelong messages kept us there, locked in to something that was no longer serving us, losing ourselves in the contortion.
I know that it can take an excruciatingly long time to learn how to set boundaries, unlearn self-betrayal, take accountability, and demand better for ourselves because we KNOW we deserve it. And even in utilizing any or all of those skills we may not always be met where we are at by others or experience an empathetic and compassionate response. In the shadow of friendship loss, we get to decide how we will respond, how we will react and how we treat endings. Even in grief, I can act from my values of integrity and kindness, because grief is not an excuse for bad behaviour.
As I sit here grieving the things that are already lost, I cannot turn to her and it is devastating. She was someone that I could tell anything to and receive unwavering support or thoughtful challenging because she knew who I was in the world and who I wanted to be. I knew undoubtedly, she wanted to see me succeed and wanted to help me get there. It is heartbreaking to know that something changed so dramatically that now it is time to leave, to save myself, to preserve what love once existed. I really believed I would be grieving a death when this friendship ended, hers or mine. I never fathomed the possibility of grieving the loss of the friendship. I am overwhelmed and aching, navigating changes that I cannot control, outmaneuver, or avoid. Sitting here in the aftershocks of devastation sorting through the shattered pieces of our life together with the growing awareness of the gaping hole in my future. I am trying to feel it all without rushing to what comes next. Reminding my anxious mind that I can wait to open up to the life that will emerge.
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