Lost: Friend

Sad.

So, I lost a friend Monday.  For once and for all.  For good.  Irreversibly.  Forever.  Finis.

Finale.

This doesn't happen much.  Actually,  aside from one boyfriend who dumped me for another girl who would put out when I wouldn't, I don't think anyone has ever not been my friend anymore.  Oh, I've grown apart from friends.  Moved away and lost touch.  And I've had people get mad at me (as I have with them), but we've usually been able to work our ways back together eventually.

For the most part, people think I'm nice.  I have always been nice.  So nice that another boyfriend let me keep the watch when I tried to give it back.

Which is why this loss is more confusing than anything. I have no idea what the real problem is.  I mean, when someone is telling you on one hand that you're nice and they like you, and at the same time they are practically making the sign of the cross with their index fingers, it's hard to figure out the comings and goings.  And when they alternate said sign on one encounter with cordial conversation on the next, it's impossible to interpret.

I do know this, however.  I hurt.

How did I deal?  I pulled spring grass and planted gerbera daisies and lobelia and violas.  I deadheaded the roses.  And filled the hummingbird feeders for the first time this spring.  Poor babies.

And I wrote. Writing has helped the most.

I finished Artist's Way recently, and one of the last things Julia Cameron said was to do the mending.  I replaced buttons on a blouse and am mending the garden.  But I wondered if mending the clothing was a metaphor for mending relationships, and I tried with this one.  It didn't work.


This, too, shall pass.