Balloon-Esque

Are some things just unforgivable? Some people just unforgivable?

I'm already apprehensive writing about this so I dunno how far this'll go.

Have you ever had a best friend? ...Some of you already know what I'm feeling. What I'm thinking. Do you remember how it feels to be understood, completely, by someone else?

And then it all goes to hell.

It's been 4 years since the husband and I "officially" got married. Our marriage license was procured on this day in Colorado since we were doing a destination wedding in a different country the next month. I had to work today 4 years ago, but before work we went to the Clerk and Recording office with our families and my best friend and got married. Our license is witnessed by his brother and my friend.

In that first year, a lot of things changed. A lot of growing up happened, really unbelievably fast. My whole lifestyle changed.

One friend told me that before the husband, I was like a balloon on a string being blown by the wind, all over the place...maybe trying to find my place. And the husband became my rock that settles the string, so my thoughts and voice and ideas can still fly all over the place, but part of me is steadier than ever. ...When that friend described this phenomenon (with lots of hand gestures) we laughed until my eyes teared up, but now...I see the truth in it.

What seems like a million years ago, I pretty much did whatever I wanted. I would see something or feel something and I'd act on it pretty much immediately. I'd go after things if I wanted them, really attack them. If I felt bad about something or just had a weird feeling, then I'd back off. Some of these things turned out to be good things in my life, and some of those experiences turned out to be fairly horrible. But right by my side was Jen. And she was very... balloon-esque with me. Years and years of friendship and some very serious shared experiences made our whole relationship with each other...an experience in itself.

She was more sociable than I. Definitely. She enjoyed people, while I am more amused by people. She really liked to experience different social groups, being in the middle of different groups, being the ringleader of fun. And I really liked to stand right by her and watch. It was amazing and probably still is, how people react to her. But there were some days that she wouldn't want to be around six thousand people, when she was happier in her house with her dog, hanging out with her then boyfriend, and just listening to music. Or sitting in a room by herself, singing. Just like half my time I want to be out looking at things, doing things and the other half of time I just want to lay on the husband or sit at my desk and write. We were both very manic in the fact that when we wanted people around, we wanted them around now and we could procure a party within about 20 minutes.. but when we wanted to be alone, we wanted to be alone right at that moment. And we had (have?) tempers to match each other, though very different things would strike our fuses.

In the months before the husband left for Basic Training, her then fiance lost his grandmother. A woman who had been a really amazing woman to everyone that knew her...and I know that loss changed something in Jen and Chad's relationship...it made them a lot closer, made him..I think, finally really depend on Jen and I again, I can only think, that it really sealed and cemented them together in a way they hadn't come together before. I was dealing with the whole...entering-the-military phase of our lives, and busy disagreeing between several sets of friends about lifestyles. I really hate that. I'm a big supporter of letting people do whatever they want as long as they're safe... and really, really hate having to defend one friend against the other. And that's what it was coming to.

I gave up. And I lost Jen maybe because of that. Unrepeatable things were said by so many people and it went on for weeks even after Jen and I had stopped talking. And many of my other friends were seriously thrilled when Jen and I stopped talking... Because the way they saw it, was that she was a volatile presence in my life. Her lifestyle no longer matched mine. Rumors flew around, just absolute bullshit about what I was saying or she was saying or what someone 100 miles away from us was saying.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

That was more than three years ago.

I know she's married, I know that a lot of her family is doing fairly well. I think that she's happy. I hope that she's happy.

And maybe that's the difference now. I hope that she's happy. The first year that we didn't talk, I was still mad. Because I didn't think I had done anything wrong, and part of me was still thinking that whatever anger we had would eventually blow over. ...It's not like this was the first time we had stopped talking. But it's certainly gone on the longest now. And I did do things wrong, I thought that I was supporting her, that we were supporting each other like friends should. But things were changing, and the way we "supported" each other should've changed too. The 2nd year we didn't talk, I was pregnant. And so wrapped up in that while the husband was deployed. ...The 3rd year.. I didn't miss her so much. I've had my husband back from his deployment, we have our child and our families, our own life... and I know Jen very much so has her own life too.

But I had a dream about her the other night, and when I woke up I thought, "God, I hope she's good." Not just ok, but really good. Occasionally I'll still get a feeling in my gut, a "something's wrong" feeling, and I'll think about her.. We used to be that close, that some how--viscerally we would know when something was wrong with the other. Maybe a drop of her blood still runs in me. So sometimes I'll think.. I hope she's ok.

If she reads this, and word might get around to her that I've written this because we do have a lot of mutual friends.. I don't know what she'll think. Before, I'd know what she would think, what she'd do, what she'd say. In this case, I can see it going a couple ways.. Either she'll see this as a sort of plea for her to contact me.. which in her eyes, might be pathetic on my part. Or it'll just make her think back to the good times, and the bad times. And just think.

Maybe this is pathetic on my part. At this point in my life, I'm not looking for a reunion with long-lost friends...I'm just wondering, with everything that's happened in the last few years, with how much I've changed...and I'm sure she's changed a lot too.. I wonder if we'd even know each other anymore.

And I miss having someone really know me as well as she did. I have really great friends still, friends that love the husband and I and our child, ones that I can turn to if I need anything, ones who'll listen to me when I need to be listened to, or just leave me be when I need to be alone...but it's just not the same.

If I were to talk to her again, or see her again.. I'd probably think about how thankful I was for the years where she pushed me to be more sociable, the times that she helped me get out of bad relationships or how she pushed me into the best relationship of my life.. I have my husband because she helped to give me the courage to hold onto him.

I'd want her to meet Auralia, hear Auralia's laugh. I'd want to just sit, maybe smoke a cigarette, drink a chai and just bask in knowing that we are who we are. And we've always both been so proud of who we are. But somehow we lost sight of being proud of each other. ...And I just can't decide whether that's forgivable.