The Hardest Word

No, I'm not talking about 'sorry'; I'm talking about 'goodbye'.
It's such a final word, you know?
It's an ending, a word that doesn't offer an opening. It's closing a door that will never be opened again.
At least, it is for me.

I'm an endless trier though. Giving up on friendships, especially, isn't something I take lightly.
Unfortunately, it can't be prevented if the other person in the friendship stops trying.

For any relationship to work, it takes both people to be active participants. Both of you talk, text, tweet, share stories, meet up, etcetera. Even if it's just a few times a month.
I, for example, have two friends who live abroad and we Skype every few weeks and talk on Facebook a few times a month. Sometimes, it isn't more than once in a month because it depends on our schedules but they're still two of my closest friends.
I have another friend who lives in Edinburgh, like me (obviously), and we barely see each other but we both have Snapchat and talk every once in a while. When we see each other though, it's like no time has passed and she's like a sister to me (singing, dancing, acting and CHICKEN forever! (Private joke ;)).
But there goes my point - you can't have a friendship when you don't talk to someone.

One of my best friends and I are going through this right now.
I don't know how it started but our relationship has phased out gradually.
I know it happens but I never expected it to happen to us, you know?
Maybe it was naive of me but I always expected her to be there. We were going to dance at each other's weddings and tell embarrassing stories about each other to our spouses and children.

So I'm left with a burning question: Where did we go wrong?
As I said before, relationships take commitment. You both have to make an effort for it to work and, if you're not talking to each other at all, it's not going to last.
We, gradually, stopped talking to each other late last year and it's just never been the same. We did talk. In November. We had a good conversation on Facebook and we even had a night out together when our mutual friend couldn't make it at the last minute.
It was good to spend time with her. I was particularly fragile after having a hard month due to something I wrote about previously so I enjoyed the chance to let my hair down (metaphorically. It's always down) and have fun. I even met a guy who knew people I went to school with who was really interesting on my way home. It was a good night.
Afterwards though...
I don't know. We went weeks without talking until we exchanged messages over Christmas. She apologised for not talking to me more and I was just thrilled to hear from her. I mentioned seeing her at my birthday but she never replied.
Then we saw each other at New Year. I had no idea we would be getting together but our friend suggested we all went out so we did.
I didn't talk to her until that night and, while we were out, it was like nothing had changed.
But I felt a shift.
My birthday was mentioned and she had no idea anything was happening, despite it being on Facebook and me mentioning it previously.
I mean, my friend who lives in Edinburgh and who I barely talk to but love unconditionally kept my birthday free in case I was doing something - despite nothing being planned at first.
(She ended up taking me out for a delicious dinner on my birthday and it was perfect and sweet and I had a great day)
Maybe it was accidental but I didn't keep my hopes up for seeing her.
On my birthday, my friend and I both got the same message. She'd been asked to work later than originally planned and wouldn't be able to make it.
I'll admit that I felt cheated. I used to visit her all the time when she first moved and we've grown up together. 17 years and now we never talk... It doesn't seem fair and I didn't understand why she couldn't have told her boss she couldn't work later because it was her friends' birthday. The screenshot of her phone showed she was asked - it wasn't a demand.
I'm not saying everyone can get out of shifts but not trying at all made me feel like I didn't mean anything to her.
I let it go and enjoyed my time with the friends who could make it but it felt like an extra step in the path towards the end of our friendship.
I never replied to her Facebook messages after that and she never made any efforts to talk to me so I let it go.
Until my best friend told me she hadn't shown up to said best friend's birthday a few days earlier because she 'hadn't talked to me in a while, didn't know anyone going and didn't want it to be awkward'.
I have several issues with this:

1. It wasn't about her, it was for our best friend and you go regardless
2. She knows me better than to think I would be anything but kind and friendly to her
3. She told our friend she would be there an hour before the party so deciding not to come in the end without telling her wasn't very nice

I don't know if it sounds petty but it felt like a pretty lame excuse. If you can't come, don't come but don't blame someone else for something when you know they're not like you're insinuating.

Anyway, it made me miss her. So I called her at 1AM after seeing Jedward (they were awesome) at midnight on Wednesday/Thursday. She didn't answer but I wasn't surprised because most people are sleeping at that time of the morning on a weeknight but I called her the next day and there was nothing either. I decided to send her a message asking her to call me when she could. I even added a happy emoji to show her it wasn't anything bad.
So I waited a day and there was no response - despite Messenger saying she'd been online a lot.
After waiting a day, I sent her a follow-up message: 

"Okay... Well, it keeps saying you're active but you never reply so here goes. I've known you all my life. Literally. 17 years is more than three quarters of it. I love you. I miss you. And I hate that we don't talk anymore. I don't know how or why it happened but it's been less and less and I hate it. You're family and I love you so much. I'm sorry I didn't reply after my birthday. I was upset you didn't come and I missed you and then it was days that I hadn't replied and... It spiraled. I miss the fact you're so incredibly Scottish and proud and how you have a different opinion to me on most things. I miss hearing about what you're up to and I hate the fact that I couldn't tell you anything you've been up to in these last few months and you couldn't tell me the same about me. I hope you're okay. I hope you're happy and living your best life. This is the hard part though because we have two choices. We can either fix our communication problems and be friends or we can keep not-talking and move on from this friendship.I'm not saying that like I want us to never speak again but it's the unfortunate reality. Just know that you're always going to mean something to me and I love you no matter what happens. But you can't be friends with someone you don't talk to. All my love and good wishes, Jess xoxo"

That's it. That's the full message.
I'm writing this post at 10PM on Friday night. If she hasn't responded by this time tomorrow, I'm going to post it with the ending to that story.

I hope she does and that we can work through our issues but, if she doesn't, I'm glad I can say that I did everything I possibly could to try and mend our broken friendship.

Jessica
xoxo

Saturday, 11:19pm

Well, it's been 25 hours and she hasn't read the message.
A year ago, I probably would have suggested she hadn't seen it or had been busy or something but... Messenger tells me she was active four hours ago.
Three days, two phone calls, one important message.

The hardest part of all of this is knowing that I couldn't save us. She ruined this. I tried and never gave up but I, obviously, don't mean as much to her as she once meant to me.

I'm not trying to play the Blame Game here.
I'm not angry at her.
It's just upsetting.

I think I've said before that friendships ending can often be like relationships ending. You spend time with this person, growing together, learning each other and making memories. All for it to be over so quickly that you need a minute to process what's happened.

So it comes back to that word.

This is all I have to say to her now:

Goodbye. Thank you for 17 years of friendship. I'm sorry I couldn't save us but I hope you find happiness with whatever you do in life.
But I'm done. I can't keep playing this game with you where I pretend we're fine and you haven't hurt me and you refuse to tell me why you decided I wasn't someone you wanted in your life after almost 20 years.
I once told you that the only reason I would give up on a person completely were if we didn't love each other anymore.
You don't ignore people you love.
I've made mistakes in friendships. I've hurt people and I'm not trying to say I'm perfect with this post.
One thing I will say about those times though is that I was younger and foolish. I learnt from my mistakes and I tried really hard not to give up on you.
What I didn't realise though, is that you'd already given up on me.
So have a great life. I truly mean that.
Goodbye, for the last time.
Jessica.

The First Cut Is The Deepest

'Life is only as good as those you get to share it with' - Darren Criss

This is one of my favourite quotes for a lot of reasons: it's true, it's short and sweet and it carries more weight than I believe was initially intended.
I've just turned 20 and I'm still relatively young but that doesn't mean I haven't experienced heartbreak. Thing is, I'm not talking about a guy; I'm talking about friends.
We've all been there; you have a friend that isn't really great for you and the friendship starts to suffer but you just can't call it quits for some reason.
For me, my last friendship breakup was extremely difficult. It started off being because I liked a guy and she didn't approve and turned into a disgusting breakup which I'm still trying to get over months later.
The initial problem was that she didn't think he was a great guy and I was still in that 'Oh he's so perfect and can't do anything wrong' phase of liking someone we all tend to go through in the beginning of something new. On reflection, I understand where she was coming to - to an extent - but it was when she started making me feel dirty after making out with him where I had to take a step back and say 'Hey. It is not okay for you to make me feel like that'.
I'm not perfect. I sometimes judge people, mentally, that I see on the streets while I'm out and think 'Bad outfit' or 'Strange hair' or whatever but you don't expect that from your friends. The point I made to her was that there are enough women hating on other women in this world and that's what got me upset. She didn't understand this and kept trying to justify her reasoning - even going to far as to say that she had older friends who would think it was disgusting. The blows got lower and lower until I had to call it and say 'Don't message me anymore'. But I kept it nice. This is a woman I've loved and appreciated for three years and I wished her the best in life. Originally, she'd said that we could be friends but she wasn't going to mention her personal life and I shouldn't mention mine but, as I said to her, that isn't a friendship. Friendship is about being raw and open and trusting someone to help you through the bad and good times.
So we stopped talking.
A couple months later, I sent her a message saying that I was sorry about what happened and that I hoped we could still be friends because I love her and the situation was bad. Unfortunately, I opened up to her and she spat back in my face. I showed my friend Roslyn the messages and she was disgusted. I stopped reading them as they got nastier and noticed she still wasn't getting my original point about women hating on women. The last message which Roslyn read was apparently vile. I didn't read it but I caught the last bit about me being young and immature.
The thing is that you can't pretend to be mature or decide you're more mature than someone just because you're older. We all have different experiences in life and they all shape who we are and who we become. Just because she's older than me, doesn't mean she's better and I think she is extremely immature. She even said she blocked me on social media and blocked my number. There are better ways to handle breakups and I respected her more than that.
Throughout my difficult lesson learning, I tried to be nice to her because I did love her and I missed her. She was a good friend to me for those years and I don't think you should forget that.
The problem is that she called me immature and nasty and a bully but she didn't accept the fact that her judgment of me over something that made me happy at the time really hurt me. I apologized and accepted that we were both wrong to let it escalate but she never apologized. She liked to say it was all my fault and she probably still believes that but, at the end of the day, I know I tried.
I learned a lot from that though.
While friendship breakups can be extremely painful, it's good to let go of people who are toxic and who don't make you feel good about yourself.
I'm not saying 'Only be friends with people who always agree with you' because that's ridiculous and unrealistic. What I'm saying is that you should only be friends with people who bring positivity and loyalty to your life. I disagree with my friends all the time but it's how you approach the disagreement and the situations that define your friendship. Never allow your friend to feel like you don't appreciate them because people can only take so much of that.
For me, I know I acted mature in that situation. After our initial argument, I never hit below the belt again. I tried to reason with her and accept that both of us were wrong but she was too stuck on her own, single-minded opinions and calling me names I didn't deserve.
However upsetting a friendship breakup is, you learn something from every one. I've never learnt more from a breakup than I have with my last one and, although I still miss her and wish her the best out of life, I'm glad we're not friends anymore. I have incredible friends who I treasure with all my heart and I'm so grateful for these people.
I only hope that she can accept that it wasn't all my fault one day.
I just don't know if she will.
'Life is only as good as those you get to share it with' - Darren Criss
Jessica
xoxo