Sisterhood: Foreva, Foreva-eva, Foreva-eva?

I got a frann that is always down for a frolic. Whether it’s late-night Wendy’s runs to satisfy pregnancy cravings, or eating fried pollock in a Popeyes parking lot before we shut down a Target - the good sis is always down! Early in our friendship we spent a lot of time wandering the aisles of Target just talking. We had been vibing long enough for me to pick up that she wasn’t okay. She often just shares but this day she was desperate to avoid talking in general. I really can’t remember what I said to her, but we went from looking at mugs (one of her favorite things) to her crying in my arms. Womanhood was trying to wear her out, but we got to share a “this is sisterhood” moment in the middle of a Target. 

If you haven’t already gathered, I stan for my girl gang. Our text threads go from kiki’s to the most vulnerable topics. We flow like that because these relationships offer us the safety to be the best, worst, and most broken versions of ourselves. Sometimes it’s these moments that cement our sisterhood. Because that’s what this girl gang is for, right? 

Most of the time I would answer that with a resounding "yes", but unfortunately, I've had to learn the hard way that sometimes sisterhood can turn into the ghetto. Because the worst heartbreak you'll ever experience is with a friend. Oddly enough, it’s also one of the few breakups that others don’t offer you support or understanding while you’re going through it. Somewhere along the way, we’ve been brainwashed to think romantic breakups are the worst, that it’s okay to cry and eat your ice cream in the dark if you and your partner split, but that’s the ONLY time. What’s even crazier though is the more I talk about my own friendship heartbreak, I realize that so many other people are redefining, recategorizing, or completely terminating some of their friendships. We’re all doing it. Wrestling, crying, shocked, and in some cases ready to swing! And it is a grief that goes unacknowledged and it is a heavy burden to bear. 

I often say that my college years are when I really made true friends for the first time. I hung out with pretty much the same girls from middle school to high school but my relationship with them wasn’t deep enough to withstand the distance of college. It’s the women I did life with in my twenties that I have loved the deepest, but deep love comes at a cost. 

There was a woman I met during my freshman year that really sticks out here for me. Our first interaction was in the dining hall. She and a friend stopped by the table where some friends and I were sitting. We chatted a while, they left, and then my friends gave me some disapproving looks. 

Me: “What?!” 

Them: “Why were you being like that?” 

Me: “Like what?” 

Them: “You were looking like you didn’t like her!”

Me: “I mean, I don’t know her but it’s something about her face…” 

Them: “That's so mean!” 

Me: “I didn’t say she was ugly! Her face is just untrustworthy!” 

One thing’s for certain, two things for sure: I’m going to be reading whatever energy you give off and my face is going to tell ALL my thoughts. 

I pretty much kept my distance, we didn’t have a lot of overlap anyway, and she didn’t vibe right with me. That was until we actually started hanging out. At the end of my freshman year, I tried out for our campus worship teams and we ended up being on the same team. We quickly bonded over our shared nervousness and love for snarky commentary. From sophomore year on we were good friends, and even planned to be roommates our senior year. Y’all her mom even handmade me a custom weighted quilt! 

I didn’t notice a shift in our relationship probably until it was too late. We moved into our apartment in August, probably no more than a month before I got engaged. I don’t know if we lived together a full 3 months before she moved out. Our campus apartment was near a construction site and it could make for a dusty place if we opened the window or ran the a/c that was facing the building. She said the dust was impacting her voice (she was studying music) and that she was moving in with some friends across campus. I remember being devastated. In part because I didn’t believe her reasoning. We had never talked about her voice being impacted or that she was thinking about moving. It was just happening. I even remembered telling her, she could talk to me about anything, I just wanted her to be happy. She said it was just for her voice but I could not accept that. And I can't tell you how much I cried about it because my gut said there was more. 

Well darlings, that’s when the reports started. Mutual friends started encouraging me to be nicer to her, that she had been telling them she felt left out, and felt like I had chosen Mel (my other bf) and Cager over her. This relationship taught me just how sensitive I actually was because I went to fix-it mode! She had been my bf for a couple years, so I knew direct confrontation wasn’t her thing (I mean I had asked!). So I tried to invite her to things more, I even went as far as asking Mel and Cager to “date” her too. Nothing really worked. We rarely saw each other outside of group settings and obligatory wedding activities (because she was a bridesmaid too.)

I worried about our relationship a lot and Cager had a front row seat to it all. He held me as I cried when she moved out. He tried to be better friends with her when I explained what people had been telling me about her feelings. Chile, he even confronted her 40,000 ft in the air. We were all on a plane together and this man calls her over to our seats and sat there without any hesitation: “Are you going to get your dress? Are you going to be in the wedding?” I literally sat there looking at my shoes cringing! Partially embarrassed and partially concerned about what her answer would be. Y’all, I was worried but would not accept that we were drifting/falling/whatever you wanna call it. 

My heart was literally breaking and I was desperately trying to hold the pieces together. And all at the same time, I was unaware of it. This stage of grief is called denial.*facepalm* I struggled with sharing this part of my life with anyone. Hell, I’m struggling to tell you - almost a decade later. Because the point for me wasn’t to make her out to be the villain, and I really couldn't capture how much I struggled (and sometimes still do) with losing her. She was my best friend, so I knew the signs that I was about to be iced out: avoiding conflict, taking a while to complete tasks, avoiding solo time with people. I knew how she operated but I never thought it would come back to me. That the person I could talk to, laugh with, be honest about all my anxieties with wouldn’t be that for me anymore. It would be a solid YEAR before it came to a head for me. Before I stopped clinging to the memory of us and took an honest look at where we were. 

We were supposed to get dinner one night and I hadn’t heard from her yet…until I literally heard her. I heard her voice in the hall of my apartment laughing with another friend of hers. I text again to see if we were still on. She replied about pushing back because she needed to rest from a rough day at work. And while that is a perfectly fine response and reason, it broke something for me. I just said that I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t keep trying to make it work, and ignoring how hurt I had been for the last year. We weren’t friends again after that. I walled off like my name was China. It didn’t make the hurt go away but I thought it felt good to be in control of what was going on. Walled up and wounded. We had some awkward passing encounters, and then nothing but a text here and there - the death of my mother, the birth of my daughter, ya know. 

For a while, I thought I should have followed my first mind about her; that my strong cut off game would protect me, and that my tight girl gang would overwrite anything she could have been or what I felt she had done. The lie detector determined that was a lie. “I can’t wait to see my best friend!” “Can’t wait to tell ___ about the bubble gum idea!”; It still stings a little when Facebook memories come up. Like, dang Zuckerberg! Let me nurse my wounds in peace! I’ve come to realize my “cut off game” only removed her but did nothing to heal my heart. Because I loved her, and I loved what we had while it was still good.

And while it made me grateful for the friends that remained, it also made me cripplingly fearful of losing another one. It wasn’t until I got into another friend conflict that I realized how unhealed that heartbreak was. I started to repeat the same pattern and about 10x more quickly. But this time it also made me more empathetic for the person I thought was a villain, especially since I was being penned into someone else’s story in the same light. There's a tweet I’ve seen a few times that says (paraphrasing here), “I love that Disney Pixar’s newest villains are just people with their own traumas.” Adult me can see that now; that she wasn’t my villain but living out her own reality. And that doesn’t negate that it hurt like hell for me, but it does help me see that it was true for her. 

I’ve cried my share of tears over loves lost and helplessly watched my friends do the same. & the tears that stung the most were of the best friends we lost. & honestly it’s a pain that I’d only reserve for my worst enemy.