A Letter to Someone I Lost

To my ex-partner in crime,

This is something that I might post, and that I might delete a few minutes later. I might hide it, I don’t really know yet. I couldn’t sleep, and started thinking about our old story, taking it out to air, thinking about some old things that were important to us at the time. It was something of a mistake, so here I am, 2 am, thinking out loud.

I have a few things to say, and I could name a few names of people who would disapprove of me putting this out in public, but I don’t really care at 2 in the morning. these are things that I would probably say to you if I could say anything to you. If I could be honest. If you would listen. If people wouldn’t tell me it was a bad idea or something crazy like that. Which it is, but you won’t read this. Just some close friends who might tell me this is a really bad idea. Which I know, so… moving on.

It’s been almost a year since you stopped talking to me officially. I was washing my hands and we exchanged a couple of comments about chapped hands and lotion. That was about it. Since then I’ve attempted some awkward passing remarks in an attempt to revive… something, but nothing much worked. Something about a book you got for your birthday and if I could read it, something about the cat hand-warmers I got you for Christmas (I know you don’t really use my gifts, but they were always the most interesting to pick out. That Rain Man poster was the best, I was kind of bummed you didn’t take it to college, but it is what it is…), and I asked you for a piece of pizza once. You looked at me pretty surprised. Mostly, you just seemed to forget I existed. Which you had, or at least, pretended to. I did practically the same thing except in a look-at-her-not-so-covertly-to-see-if-maybe-she’ll-see-I’m-here sort of way (who did I think I was I fooling!). The whole mess was my fault. It hurt though, spending that year pretending I didn’t exist even in the same circle of conversation, not looking at me when I asked you a question, responding by looking at someone else entirely. I started avoiding circles, or parties, because it was awfully hard to hold a conversation among friends with a big invisible wall in the middle. It was just easier to let you have them, and to be honest, you were always much more fun to listen to anyway :)

But you wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t done all the stupid things I did. I drove you off, I did those things, and I paid a pretty high price for them, I guess.

It’s been almost a year and I still think about you all the time, and it still aches, but not as sharp, it’s more resigned to my fate. I thought for a while that maybe we could be friends again, people said we could. But I’m pretty certain we can’t anymore. It’s gone on too badly for too long, and we probably don’t have much in common at this point. I wish that we could be acquaintances again, exchange names, talk about college choices, things like that. I’ve gotten better since then, and I think (I hope) you have too.

It’s been almost a year and I miss you. I wish you the best.

So, I wish I could tell you, if I could tell you anything at all, that I’m sorry. Just once, so that you knew. Then we could be strangers again.

Love,

Monica