Awkward Pt. 2

Reconnected with CH, a good friend from high-school yesterday. Always terrific to realize that one's friends are friends for good reasons, not just proximity. Always good to refresh these friendships and realize they aren't based on "Remember that time when ..." conversations. Always good to know I can touch base with a friend and pick right up despite the passage of time. Perhaps an ironic statement in light of the conversation.

When he asked me to update him on discussions of friendship we'd had in the past, I was surprised that I was able to recount my awkward story without pain or bitterness.

A moment to actually update the story here, as I don't think I bothered at the time. A few days after some brief, cordial email exchanges with one of my friends who goes incommunicado for long periods of time, I thought better of letting go and just drifting away. I wrote a note re-explaining how the disappearing made me feel. How it made me feel to reach out without hearing back for weeks/months. That I couldn't initiate contact any longer out of a feeling of self-preservation, but that I'd like to continue the friendship at some point when she had the time and inclination to initiate contact.

It was a tough note to write, and I had to edit it down to strip out expressions of bitterness and hurt, and as well as making it as little about evoking guilt and making demands as possible. I was torn about sending it at all because I couldn't seem to edit those things out completely. Perhaps they're just present in the very nature of such a communication. In the end, all I could do was specifically disclaim them as motivations and hope it was good enough.

Again, when I recounted this to CH, I couldn't really re-connect with the pain I felt at the time, and realized that something like ten days had gone by without me having thought of the issue at all. There wasn't a cathartic moment, but somehow my communication plus time (oh the eons of time represented by a week-and-a-half!) got me past/over/around whatever emotional hump existed.

Sadly, my communication might have been the end of that friendship. Certainly not my intention, but perhaps the inevitable result. Actually, I'm not even sure that's true, as lack of communication was what I perceived as the problem in the first place.

CH told me I sounded like a spurned lover, which was like being punched in the gut. Then he said, "But I mean that without judgement," which didn't make me feel any better! I'm going to have to translate that in my head to "You sound whiny," which I have to agree with.

At any rate, that's the story, for the sake of completeness. Tune in for the next self-indulgent installment, which I guaranteed will contain the simile, "Like the giant tortoises of the Galapagos," as well as guest analysis from CH and RH both of whom will chime in with, "Are we really going to talk about this again?"