Seasons of Friendship

A little over two years and one month ago, I left my abusive relationship and decided to survive. For a lot of reasons this was a difficult choice, though on the outside people who don’t know me well might think it should have been easier.

I think that’s probably true for a lot of abusive relationships. People outside of the relationship think that it’s obvious that you deserve better, it’s obvious that you should leave. But it’s not that easy. It’s the rare person who can leave a bad relationship in one fell swoop. It’s even rarer when that person has a history of childhood trauma and learned that abuse IS love.

It took me five attempts to leave my ex.

I reached out to support groups and hotlines and was continuously blown off. This all happened during the last year of that relationship when I had a therapist holding my hand and reminding me that what I was going through was abuse in the first place.

It was also after I had enough people in my life who knew what was going on and cared enough to stay, to support me, to remind me that I was loved and that after leaving, they would be there to help me pick up the pieces.

But not everyone stayed.

As hard as it was to come up with the money and the will to leave after a lifetime of being told I was unworthy, I did it. I packed up my entire life in a matter of hours with help from one of my best and oldest friends, my mom, and the guys from the moving company. I left a lot behind, the worst of which was one of my dogs, but I got out.

I put everything in storage, and my friend drove me halfway to meet another friend who I would be staying with 400 miles away from my community. I would spend the next six months in nature, figuring out who I was in the quiet moments, on a grassy hill, in my own head.

A few weeks after I left , the same friend decided that they didn’t want to be friends with me anymore. This came after more than a decade of being in each other’s lives and a week after I admitted I had feelings for them.

I never felt like I could say anything about the feelings before then because it wouldn’t be fair to them. I couldn’t act on them, and I wouldn’t want them to put their life on hold while I was entangled in a bad relationship. Plus, they were so supportive and had been my safe space to land for so long while I was going through hell with my ex that I didn’t want to do anything to ruin it.

So for them to tell me that they didn’t want anything to do with me anymore right after I told the truth, not long after I escaped, was brutal. If I hadn’t already been living 400 miles away, things might’ve gone differently.

If I hadn’t already left my ex, I don’t think I would’ve had the strength to leave knowing that soon after I would lose this person.

I never got a complete answer as to what happened or why things went down the way that they did, and a lot of times we don’t get that kind of closure anyway. It hurt, I know that. And it still hurts to this day.

Even as I see my life unfolding, even as I dip my toe back into the dating pool, even as I find happiness in the smallest and darkest of moments, I think of them.

Last night I spent the night dreaming about them in a bunch of different situations—in each one they were solidly there in my life, supporting me no matter what. And then I woke up, and I remembered that they’re gone. And the grief hit me again.

The grief is different now though. I don’t cry about it as often.

When I take an Uber and the driver has the same name, when I’m reminded of a prayer by the archangel with the same name, when I hear their name on a TV show or as one person calls to another when I ride the bus, it hurts a little less each time.

Eventually I hope it will stop hurting. Eventually I think my brain will stop wondering “what if? And why?” Eventually, I’m confident that I will meet someone new who will make me feel just as safe with them.

Sometimes I think we forget about the seasonality of life. The seasonality of friendships. Perhaps we think that a season is just that – the same length as a season.

A couple of months in winter, maybe a bit longer in the long heated stretches of summer.

Sometimes:

We get comfortable, thinking that if someone has stuck with us for several of these seasons, maybe even several years, maybe a decade, that they will be around forever. That they will be a part of your life, a part of your comforting quilt of relationships, forever.

We forget that even if someone feels safe, even if they make you laugh and feel appreciated and hold you in your darkest moments when you’re telling them the things that you’re ashamed of, they can still leave.

Life takes them down a different path. Sometimes life takes them too soon, like my first love who died of a heart attack at 17.

They just decide, when you’re 400 miles away and can’t look them in the eye, that you’re too much, that they don’t want you in their life anymore.

And even when it hurts:

Even when you spend the next few years asking yourself questions & second-guessing all the seasons they helped you through…

Even when you accidentally text them when you’re half conscious and trying to respond to someone else and you use speech to text and technology fails you—and then you feel like an awful person for accidentally violating their boundaries…

Even then—everything will be all right.

The seasons will change. You will change.

Life will keep moving, the sun will keep rising, the planets will keep spinning, and one day the nostalgia won’t be so painful.

One day, you’ll feel both feet are firmly in a new season and even your subconscious won’t bring them up anymore.

I’m waiting for that day. For the grief to end. For the memories to subside and to be able to just remember the good instead of the pain.

So while I wait, I’m thinking of you friend. Hoping you’re doing well and that your life has expanded beyond belief. Wishing that your seasons have been easy and filled with joy because even when you were in my life, that’s all I ever wanted for you anyway.

Namaste dear reader, until next time.