We broke up

(or whatever it's called when friends do it)

“Never contact me again.”

That’s the polite version of the last thing she said to me.

And I probably deserve it. After all, I did tell her she was behaving like a little bitch.

The crazy part is we’re not even fighting over anything that’s really that big of a deal — but we’re both pissed at each other for the way we’re responding to what the other person says.

I hate the fact that she won’t just hear me.

And she can’t believe I would try to make any part of this her responsibility.

I don’t even know exactly how it happened. It’s not like we were having problems. At least, not that I was aware of…

But in one afternoon, with no warning, things escalated from bickering with each other over petty nonsense, to deleting each other’s phone numbers, texts, message history, and unfriending one another on Facebook. (Well, I assume she deleted all my stuff. I damn sure got rid of hers.)

But for what, though? I don’t even know if I can point to one thing and say, “This is why. This is what caused us to break up.”

I just know that all of a sudden, we don’t want anything to do with each other.

Now, hear me out on this, because this is an important part of this week’s post:

I know that I’m partially to blame.

I know she’s not a bad person — and neither am I. I know neither one of us set out to hurt the other. I know that underneath the pain, we both think the world of each other…

But neither one of us is willing to let go.

Neither one of us, apparently, knows how to argue effectively.

So, rather than work through this incredibly painful situation, we’re going our separate ways. It’s not her fault. It’s not my fault. I still love her, and no doubt she still loves me. Even so, I don’t think we’re ever gonna speak to one another again.

And yeah, that hurts.

It makes me wanna overeat, and watch too much Netflix, and quit writing, and give up on the piano, and on developing my singing voice, and on ever believing I’m going to have any of the good things I’ve ever wanted in this life…

Because this relationship… this friendship… was supposed to fix all the things I got wrong with everyone else I’ve ever isolated, walked away from, betrayed, lost touch with, been cut out of their life… all of it.

This was my chance to be a good friend, and finally do everything right, and find someone I could share my secrets with…

And instead of fight to save the friendship, I just want the friend to go away now, and never return… and as far as I can tell, she feels exactly the same… and that just, hurts, ya know?

But somewhere inside, I know even if we forgive one another (which, we’re both good people, so sooner or later I know we will), we can still never go back to what we had before.

Some problems are just too big, and sometimes no matter how bad we want things to be different, we can’t change it.

I love her. I’m gonna miss talking to her every day. But I know our journey together is over. It’s time for us to go our separate ways. To try to hold on, when it’s time to let go, wouldn’t do either one of us any good.

It hurts, though…

I could write 100,000 words and never be able to explain how much it hurts.

But I can’t change it.

This is the other important part of this post, right here:

Even though this fight has ended our friendship…

It can never diminish the love we shared for each other, nor does it invalidate all the ways we helped each other to learn and grow.

It hurts. And it makes me angry. It makes me want to call her one last time and tell her what a horrible person she’s become — but despite the anger, I know she’s not horrible.

She’s just mad, and hurt, and confused. And maybe disappointed. (I know I’m disappointed right now.) But she’s not bad.

She hurt me, but that doesn’t eradicate all of the various ways she’s helped me. It doesn’t make her a monster. It doesn’t make her a little bitch. (I really shouldn’t have called her that.)

It doesn’t make her “not who I thought she was.”

She’s still an amazing, sweet, fun, helpful, generous woman, who loves everybody and wants to go out of her way to take care of the people around her. I still love her. I still admire her.

Someday, when I’m done being angry, I’ll still want good things for her.

I want her to find happiness in this life, with or without me.

But just for like ten seconds, I would love to turn the full force of my anger, disappointment, confusion, betrayal, and hurt, against her, and make her feel what she’s done to me. I know that’s not right… but if I’m honest about my feelings right now, it’s what I want to do.

I don’t think it would change anything, though. It wouldn’t bring our friendship back, that’s for sure. And it wouldn’t make her a better woman. (It would, most assuredly, make me a lesser man, though, and I don’t really want that, either.) The best it could do is to just add more anger, more bitterness, more pain…

And I don’t know about her, but for me, right now, I’ve got all the anger, bitterness, and pain, that I can handle. I don’t need to add any more, to me, or to her.

It pisses me off though. And it makes me wish that human nature was different.

But it’s not.

I can’t do anything, but just let the relationship die, and trust that when it’s all said and done, we’re both still going to be okay. I hope I can learn how to do that.

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