Unfinish...ed

What I am about to present to you is a conundrum that I just don't have an answers to. It was not that I couldn't be bothered to finish. I just don't have the current capacity or evolution to know the final insight yet. But you know what... the Mona Lisa and plenty of other works of art are unfinished, and that is what makes them memorable, and relatable. So, here we go. This is me accepting that I need to make peace with being a work in progress.

We almost never talk about friend breakups. Why is that?! The only author I've ever seen write about it is Tim Kreider in We Learn Nothing, and I loved that essay. Friend breakups are often so much more painful and shameful than a romantic breakup. We expect couples to break up, but not friends. What does it say about you that your friends don't even want to be your friends anymore? Am I a monster? Friends are supposed to see us through all the phases and seasons. They're the solid rock to the waves crashing around us.

The worst part is that if you are a true-hearted friend you can't argue with The End. You love them so much you have to let them make their choice, as painful as it might be. If they think they are better off without you in their life, then as someone who took their advice for years, as someone who wants the best for them, can you really argue with that? You both know how many times you sobbed into a crisp Diet Coke complaining about the same mistake you keep making. 

Do we hold higher standards for our friends than our romances? Friends see us fully; messy, flawed, floundering, failing. Isn't that the gift of friendship? What does it mean when they tell you that you're just too much to handle? Are we beyond hope? In a normal breakup you can say it was about them, not you. But with a friend, isn't it just the opposite? It is completely about you. They saw the real, unfiltered you and decided nope, no more of this.

Who do you even go to after they say, "I don't want to be your friend anymore"? You usually have the same community and network. It's akin to a divorce where people feel like they need to pick sides and can't bring up the other person.

To be clear, I'm not talking about a fell-out-of-touch situation or a friend-for-a-season-vs-a-reason. I'm talking about someone purposefully exiting your life.

I've been on both sides of the break-up, and neither feels good. There is never closure or peace.

I don't have a salve to ease the pain of a friendship dumping. I've asked a lot of people and they all have ones that even decades later still hurts and they don't understand. The closest thing I can compare it to is grief. Because that's what it is. Someone you loved is gone. They didn't die, but they might as well have. Except there's no funeral. No flowers. No one checks in on you. You just carry it. You think about them at 2 a.m. when someone tells a joke only they would have gotten. You see something that reminds you of an inside joke that now belongs to no one. And you can't even explain why you're sad because "my friend broke up with me" sounds like something a third grader would say.

So without a remedy, here's what I'll say: some losses don't get resolved. They just get carried. The weight changes shape over time, but it never disappears.

You can't force insight, closure, or a perfect ending. And maybe that's the whole point. Some things just stay undone.

Stay unscripted my loves 🖤 - EmmyLu