Block
The year I celebrated my fiftieth birthday, I was blocked by my two oldest friends. Blocked from their lives as well as from inconsequential things like WhatsApp and Facebook. Tipping points are unpredictable.
One friend took offense when I pointed out that we were no longer as close to each other now as we had been in our giddy teenage years. Also, that I hadn’t bothered to include their version of life in the book I’d written. I was quickly informed via ye old grapevine that I’d wasted the chance given to me to redeem myself. I was sabotaging old friendships, betraying old ties. All true. Once before, I had walked out on that friendship in the midst of fraught teenage years, then asked for understanding 25 years later. It was given magnamiously, generously. And withdrawn this past year in the face of my obdurate insistence that my story was my own to tell, and telling someone else’s story wasn’t my job. Also true was that we were no longer living the same life, sharing the same dreams. That’s a hard one for anyone to accept, and consequently, there was a bit of drama. Middle aged drama to be sure: storming off chat groups, tearful conversations with common friends sworn to secrecy but who still made sure I heard it all anyway.
The other friend begged me to leave them alone. After years of neediness, maudlin confessionals and some unhealthy attachments, they finally cut the thread. I provided the catalyst when I insisted that they owed me an apology for a joking reference to my harlot ways in those same far away teenage years. I didn’t object to that strangely biblical turn of phase. Hell, if it had been true, I’d have written about all the juicy details myself. But that casually tossed out word was particularly offensive, coming as it did from this person who knew me better than anyone in those years and knew better than anyone what a strait laced, uptight mess I was. Anyway, I insisted they apologise, and they responded predictably: they didn’t need my negativity in their life, could I please go away, etc. Gaslighting 101.
The first friend defriended me publicly and honestly. I can no longer access their thoughts and words, nor will I be able to wish their daughter a happy birthday next month. It seems a disproportionate reaction to our disagreement but it’s their call. I can empathise with the need for drama, having only recently cold turkeyed myself out of a lifelong habit.
The other one was ‘flabbergasted’ at my demand for an apology. Again, I see why. I’ve allowed these casual insults, the petty lies, the about face after drunken nights (who, me? I never said/did any of those things) too often through the years. I’ve made excuses for the insecurity, taken a fair amount of blame for it, laughed it off, played it down. So flabbergasted is the right reaction to this new me. The one who won’t take the bullshit, that’s a very new me. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the need to have them in my life, the last and only link to lost innocence. In the past, I have gone the extra mile, forgiven (but never forgotten) excesses, been the first to offer the olive branch, and sometimes a bushel of olives, all this to preserve that link. They know this too well.
Last night, perhaps as a result of anti allergy medicine, perhaps because the latest overture for reconciliation had been left unread, (you see the pattern: there has been no apology of course, just a long silence. And still, and still. Pathetic). I was in my usual half asleep, half awake state when the thought came clearly: oh, they’ve blocked me too. And then came deep sleep.
It’s the not knowing that kills the sleep. The first friend is still kind. The cut, the block was immediate and final. No room for discussion or argument. Perhaps they remember with compassion my obsessive need for clarity. Perhaps they don’t care, so long as I no longer exist in their world.
The second knows differently. They are fully aware of my obsessions and they play with them, unravelling one bitter knot after another. So the epiphany of anti histamines last night was one step forward. To articulate first that they will not be returning, and second, that I have no control over this.
I have done my share of ghosting and blocking and unfriending. The hurt hits differently when you do it, with an overlayer of righteous anger and a sense of justice served for whatever it was that became the last straw. A few years down the line and it’s hard to remember why. But in the end, it’s the losing and letting go and leaving things alone that are the lessons learnt.
Now that they have let go, I will have to figure out some bits of life on my own. Always, they were there, sometimes in reality, sometimes in thought, but they never left me alone. This year is different. They have done what I wished I could do through these crazy bitter years. They have admitted to crossing the line. I am forced to admit it too. The timing, as always, could have been so much better. This ending comes in the midst of death and loss, endless birthdays and milestones.
I have crossed that line, reluctantly. The hope that we would come to some understanding is gone. The arcs of our wildly divergent world views could never meet, that is the truth. Most of our lives we’ve spent in skirting the edge of an invisible line, nurturing a fragile peace, we who are old familiar strangers. Carefully avoiding a misstep. And now the unthinkable: that fine line has been crossed. Do they know the one I mean? The one we drew in the sand, the one we walked along but never stepped over. And then after all, it only took one careless word, one outburst, one denial, one refusal.
The thing about drawing lines in sand is that the boundaries and definitions are endless permutations and combinations of love, sanctity, bitterness, integrity and faint hope. The line could mean any or all of the above, or none of these. If today the line means acknowledging that the friendship survived the years of separation, then yesterday it was denial and bluster and tomorrow it could be gentle understanding or an outpouring of acid truth.
The hope is gone. What is left is a strange sad relief. I find I no longer miss the residue of guilt tainting my day or the sour longing that kept me up all night. Their few words have freed me from long held ties to the past. For that at least, I must be grateful. They have done what they never had the courage to do before, and I still don’t have the nerve to try. They have cut the thread, stepped over the line, erased it, now it’s a thing of the past.
The gestation period is done. This time there is no going back. There is no sorrow, just a vague sense of something missing deep within.
For all the fiercely loyal friends I have in my life, I am beyond words of gratitude. These two who have gone to places I will not follow: I will remember with a deep fondness and no regrets.