A positive thing that has happened to me recently is that an estranged friend, Brittany, recently came back into my life. We've known each other since elementary school but became closer in high school, even though we never had classes together somehow. We became especially close after high school even though I had moved away to a different town for graduate school. When I first started graduate school, I would make the hour and a half drive back to our hometown every weekend because I hated my roommate at the time and the town I lived in (because it reminded me of the misery of grad school). Brittany and I would meet up basically every Friday night and have drinks and dinner. We had many, many good times. Out of all my friends, she definitely made me laugh the most. She always kept me at a distance in a way, though. Like I knew everything about her and her personal life, but she never once invited me over to her house and she only ever came to my house once or twice that I can remember. Either way, we always had so much fun together.
Well, grad school was a tumultuous time for me. I was generally unhappy with life because school was hard, I hated my roommate, and Nick and I were doing our stupid friends-with-benefits situation, which had me all kinds of confused. Well, to get over Nick, one of the things I did was sleep with 4 other guys, and one of them happened to be a guy that Brittany liked (they may have even gone on a few dates..). I knew she liked him, but the guy was actually hooking up with my friend Brandy at the time. Brandy and I were super close at that time, so I was always at Brandy's house and he would come over, so it just sort of happened (it may have been a threesome with Brandy, ahem...). This was all a long time ago in 2012. I'm telling you, I was a massive hoe in 2012. I've only been with 5 men in my life, but 4 of them were added that year and I got with all of them at Brandy's house. Hmm...
Anyways, I stupidly told Brittany about sleeping with the guy she liked. I didn't want to not tell her like it was a secret and he ended up also telling her anyway. That just rubbed her the wrong way, rightly so, so she decided she didn't want me as a friend anymore. We literally stopped seeing each other and stopped talking after that.
There was one time I remember reaching out to her to try and reconnect years later, but she said she still wasn't in the "right place" to be friends with me, whatever that meant. So, I just figured that we were not meant to be friends and let it drop again.
To this day, it always bothered me that I lost her as a friend. I know I did her wrong, I absolutely did, so I deserved the loss of friendship. Even as the years went by, I still would sometimes think about her and how it sucked we weren't friends anymore. A few months ago, I actually tried texting her number, but I had the wrong number. I don't know what inspired me to do that.
Then, on July 27th, she sent me this text: "Hey Ashley, it's Brittany. I've contemplated a lot over the past few years. Hope you're doing well. I miss our friendship because you got me but I don't blame you for feeling the way you did/do."
I couldn't believe it! I truly thought I would never ever hear from her again. As I said, our friendship ended in 2012, so about 8 years ago. I told her I was so happy to hear from her and that I've often thought about her over the years. I apologized for what I had done back then. She said she saw me and Brandy becoming close and then I slept with that guy she had feelings for, so she just shut down. She said it's all water under the bridge and she wants to reconnect.
What's even more exciting is that she moved away from our mutual hometown and lives close to me now! We're not in the same town or even the same state (I live 20 minutes from a state line), but we're about 30ish minutes apart. We had our first get-together a couple of weeks ago and I was so nervous. I mean, I hadn't seen this girl in almost a decade! We met up for drinks and ended up having a great time. We picked up right where we left off and it feels as if we've been friends this whole time. True friendships are like that - no matter the time or space, it always works when you do come back together.
She lives alone in an apartment and has a boyfriend who lives out of town (they met online). She previously lived with an ex for 3.5 years but she had to get rid of him because he was a mean alcoholic. For work, she processes long-term disability claims. Not that exciting she says, but it pays the bills. She's doing alright for herself!
In our texting back and forth before meeting up, we both noted that we are the heaviest we've ever been, weight-wise. I thought that was interesting because she's never been a big person and years ago when we were still friends, she had gotten weight loss surgery. I never saw what she looked like after the surgery, but unfortunately, she's gained all the weight back and then some. I was actually worried I wouldn't recognize her when I saw her since it has been so long since we've seen each other. When we met up, luckily she saw me and called out to me and I'm glad she did because I don't know if I would have immediately recognized her as she does look very different from the Brittany I used to know. But hey, we're not in our early/mid-20s anymore! We're in our early 30s and things have definitely changed. Hell, I'm the biggest I've ever been, so I'm sure I shocked her as well. I was probably 80 lbs. lighter the last time she saw me.
I'm just so relieved to have this lost friendship recovered! She's also the only friend I really have right now. Brandy moved away to the west coast over a year ago and is busy raising 2 little girls, so we don't have much in common anymore or talk much. I don't have any other friends. I have a few ladies from work that I text with, but they're older than me and married with kids. Brittany is the only person my age who doesn't have kids and who actually wants to hang out with me outside of work.
We have plans to meet up again this weekend and I'm definitely looking forward to it. What's funny is now that I have a friend to hang out with, Nick acts sad and pitiful that he's being left alone. Back before he lost his best friend (the shady snake), he was always going out with his friend and leaving me alone, which I didn't mind one bit. Now he doesn't really have friends so he has no one to hang out with if I'm busy.
That's one thing that's hard to understand for me - Nick and I are both nice people, so why don't we have friends? I don't know, I guess it just gets hard once you reach a certain age, have a job, and basically don't go anywhere or do anything lol.
11:10 a.m. - Friday, Aug. 20, 2021
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