I got a letter from an old friend this weekend.
She and I used to be very close in high school, our group of friends becoming even more solid as the summer before our freshman year of college came to a close. We all promised to stay in touch and we have more or less succeeded for the last ten years. Group Facebook messages and chats, text messages and calls, weddings and visits have allowed us to continue sharing the best parts of ourselves. I’m very proud of how well we’ve kept in touch, especially since it’s been ten years with no end in sight. So when I got her letter I was confused and saddened when she said we’d let our friendship fail and that I’d really hurt her.
The bigger picture here is that I’d also gotten a text message from her while I was visiting Seattle last month. She’d recently moved to Yakima and sent me a one sentence passive aggressive message asking why I hadn’t told her I’d be in Seattle or made an effort to stop to see her. I responded quickly, assuring her I was too booked to rent a car and drive to her, and figured she couldn’t come to me with her new job and the general far awayness of Yakima. But she didn’t respond so I sent her a letter a few weeks later.
I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I told her I missed her and had been thinking of her a lot lately and that some specific high school memories with the two of us are some of my favorite. I meant it as sort of an apology/reconnecting letter, though I really don’t feel like I did anything wrong by not stopping to see her. I didn’t say anything about the trip. I wish I had a copy of what I’d said so I could better understand her response.
Her letter was intense. Basically saying she had written us off after I hadn’t made time for her that trip and that while she was glad I had nice memories with her, she wasn’t feeling very close with me now. She said she didn’t think I had intentionally hurt her and that maybe, possibly, we could be friends again sometime in the future.
I cried a bit as I read it, but I’m glad she sent it. I’d rather know if I need to do something more in a friendship then have her secretly be mad at me. But now I’m just.. a bit unsure where we’ll go from here. I wrote her back immediately with a kind of weird letter where I just rambled about how ten years later we’re all just trying to figure out which friendships to fight for and which to let fade, about how often other members of that group come back to Utah and don’t see me or just check in as an afterthought, about how I think it is part of life for our hearts to break when we’re left out but all we can do is take that ten seconds of jealousy and turn it into love for the good times we did have or hopefully will have another time. I also told her that for me high school is still everywhere in my life – I still live here, still see my parents often, see her parents often. All my friends in Utah now are people I’ve known longer than I’ve known her and major parts of me aren’t happy with that fact. I envy her new life in Washington, she made new friends, got a new job, and is having tons of new weekend adventures all from scratch with her husband. There isn’t any history or past or memories or old faces to tug at her confidence there. I told her that when I’m with people part of me reverts back to the person I was when I met them, that lately I’ve been torn between moving forward and keeping ties. I don’t know if anything I said will help or hurt, or even if I actually said what I meant, but I hope she understands that I just couldn’t bring myself to make an excuse for this specific trip.
I’m so grateful for that trip to Seattle to see a city and college friends(friends afield!) that are incredibly important to me, and I wouldn’t change any of it to be closer to her right now. I love her, and I always will, but she’s right – we aren’t as close as we used to be.
It’s always tough when this happens, but it seems like you both have handled it fairly maturely by actually communicating what you’re feeling rather than keeping it inside. I’ve definitely had friendships that have waned over the years, and it’s always sad, but somewhat inevitable. I also think there’s no reason why you couldn’t reconnect later on even if right now you aren’t very close. You in particular have always had a lot of friends, and it’s hard (maybe impossible) to maintain them all at the same level as years pass and everyone’s lives change.
Also, there are good jobs in Yakima??
She works as a PA at the hospital and it was a good enough job for her to move there with her husband. Healthcare is everywhere, even in Yakima. Maybe the biggest misunderstanding we’re having is just about Yakima in general. I think to her Yakima is a close suburb of Seattle and to me Yakima is a completely different place that… I think has a mall? She’s right I didn’t think of her, but when I went to LA I didn’t think of going to San Diego either…
The question I have now is do I work hard at reconnecting, or keep it light until later when it is maybe a bit easier to be close? You’re right, we only have enough bandwidth for a finite number friendships (especially long distance), I don’t know how much more I can give without sacrificing others.
PS Daisy called me a few hours after she read this and her comment was, “your friend needs to be more of a friend and not write you overdramatic letters”. It was my first move with the letter so its really my fault I got one back – but it is interesting how much more writing something down makes it matter vs just saying something over the phone. Words matter, and so does being able to read them.
Hey! I know I am late with my comment, but Yakima is definitely not a suburb of Seattle! I remember you saying that you were thinking of visiting this friend when you were in Seattle and I was impressed you were even considering. In my opinion, she was asking a lot to have you come all the way out there. You may have gotten friends epic bonus points for going but I have a hard time imagining how it could be insulting that you didn’t. I think that if she is the one who lives in the state, is familiar with Eastern Washington, has a car, etc, she should be the one to come visit you when you were in Seattle. I know that that is not the main point of your post… but for the record I think she is being completely ridiculous.