Once Upon a Time…
…I had a friend. We met at an event, hit it off, and were fast friends almost from the first moment. She was vivacious, attractive, and so much fun to be around. We seemed to have a lot of things in common, and there were a lot of laughs. Our friendship was intense. It was intense because of the kind of person she was, because of her high energy, and because of her deep neediness. I fulfilled something for her, and she fulfilled something for me. After all, that’s what most friendships are – a joint effort, a coming together of likes and opposites, to create a somewhat fractured whole.
And I loved her. I loved our friendship. I loved all the trouble we got into, the laughs we had, the fun we found ourselves committing. Our energy was infections, and soon a small group of us were fast friends. We had plans. We had things we were going to do.
And then she got married. The marriage wasn’t really the problem. In fact, as far as I know, she’s still married and everything is fine. It’s been five years since we were friends, and nearly that long since I thought much about her. But I know that with a friendship like ours, there were bound to be sparks, and there was bound to be an explosion, or an implosion. Which was, in the end, how it ended. There was too much fire. Too much flame. Too much intensity.
And we might still be friends if I had not chosen to walk away. It was cowardly, in a way, but it was also a way to save myself. You see, you learn a lot about how a friend is by watching how she treats her other friends. Leading up to her marriage, there was the usual stress. I was making her dress, from some very expensive fabric she had picked up, and a pattern she had picked out. I was up to the challenge. But my friend, she was worried. She wanted it perfect. She wanted it exact. She wanted it to look just like she had dreamed it should look. I understood all of that. I accepted the challenge.
But as the day drew nearer, I watched how she treated her friends. And how she treated her friends was shocking. A friend she had proclaimed her “best, oldest, dearest friend, like a sister to me” had come from out of town to help put together the wedding. My friend had spent weeks finding exactly the right dishware, which included a set cut glass lunchette plates with punch cups. Two days before the wedding, the “oldest, dearest friend” accidentally broke two of the plates. I watched as my friend tore this woman to shreds, tossing her out of the house and ending their friendship on the spot. I was delivering the dress, which was finished, when I witnessed this. I know that at the time I stood up for the old friend, as the breakage was purely an accident. But my friend would have none of it. There was cursing, throwing of things, and more breakage as her temper got away from her.
It wasn’t long afterward that I broke off the friendship. Watching her treat her “oldest, dearest friend” with such contempt was shocking. At what point would I do something to make her angry, and receive the same treatment?
You can learn a lot about people by watching how they treat their friends. I was watching. And I chose to walk away.
You might wonder why I even bring this up, after all these years. But it’s because I see cut glass lunchette plates with punch cups at every thrift store I ever go in. I cannot look at them without remembering my one-time friend. I miss the intensity, the fun, the laughs, and the closeness. It hurts that I got to witness her behaving so badly, and that I couldn’t help her friend. I wonder if they even speak today, or maintain a friendship. I know I wouldn’t have come back after that. But I think about her, and I wonder about the friendship we had, and I miss those good times.
