Once I had a best friend in the world and now we are strangers. How did it happen?
It was a relationship that was as important to me as a marriage. Completely different from a partner relationship, but just as strong.
We met at a creative writing course. I remember when she first came — brought by a friend — and I remember that I thought that she looked tired. I didn’t think at the time that she would become my closest soul in the whole world. But when we started talking, we found out we had so much in common.
I didn’t know before how it feels to have a soulmate
The creative writing was full of amazing people. We were so close, we loved each other so much, and I loved her most of all. We resonated on a level that I couldn’t even imagine before.
We were inseparable. Everyone said our names in the same breath. Arte and Hela, Hela and Arte. Her name still sounds like a song to me, and a wave of love and elation still rushes through my heart. But the relationship is empty now.
We understood each other deeply. We could communicate without words. We conveyed whole messages in just one look across a room full of people. We laughed together so much. We did silly things and I loved it.
We didn’t have easy lives, me and her. We came from abusive families. We had serious mental health problems. We banded together against the whole world. We both understood what the other one was fighting with.
Today I wonder if it perhaps were our shared hardships that brought us together — if our relationship was built not on the basis of what we love, but of what we lack.
The beginning of the end
Everything was amazing with her — until my health collapsed. My immune system stopped functioning properly. I was sick for months on end, getting healthy just to fall ill a week later. I had to stop going to the creative writing meetings, and I didn’t have the strength to go out with my friends. I was tired, so tired.
And I felt like everyone had forgotten about me. The friends that have convinced me they are my family — they didn’t visit, or visited once and then forgot about me. Out of sight, out of mind. It was a bitter awakening.
I now realize that had I asked them to come, they probably would have. That I didn’t ask for help, that I didn’t make clear that I want and need their company. I felt that “true friends” would know that and continue to seek me out on their own initiative, even if I was sick. Today I know that people can’t read minds. But I didn’t realize it then.
She was the only one who came to see me. It was difficult because she lived exactly on the opposite side of the city. But during one such visit, she said “I’m getting used to a life without you in it,” and my heart sank.
Relationships require commitment — and we weren’t ready
Once I got better, I started trying to meet with her — but she often didn’t reply to my messages, and when she did, it was just to say she doesn’t have time. Again and again. I felt deeply wounded every time it happened — so I eventually stopped trying.
You have to work on relationships. If you want to be close to someone, you need to make space for them in your life, you need to take the time, you need to make them one of your priorities. And I thought that she didn’t. That’s why I felt betrayed.
But I don’t know what was going on at her end of the relationship. Maybe she felt equally betrayed by my illness and sudden inability to meet as often as we did. She had a load of her own problems — and I wasn’t there for her. I wasn’t able to work on our relationship as well. Now I understand that this story would be completely different if she wrote it — and it would be just as valid.
I tried to stop caring. But I couldn’t. I still loved her so much and was angry with her because of it. It was worse than any breakup I have been through at the time.
Letting go
And then, one day, after many years, I finally stopped. And it was a relief, but it was so, so sad. I wrote a break-up letter to her, a breakup of a friendship, that I never sent. But after writing it, I felt like I have finally gotten over her. I found some peace, even if it was a sad feeling.
I didn’t know about her engagement. Once I would be the first person to know, even before her family. And now I didn’t know. That was probably the last drop.
She mentioned the wedding to me in passing, like it wasn’t important. Or that’s how I felt. Maybe it wasn’t like that, maybe — probably -she genuinely cared. But it made crystal clear to me how our relationship has changed.
She invited me, but I didn’t come. I didn’t have the strength to travel to a different town, to be among so many people, and frankly — I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to remind myself how unimportant I’m to her now. I was glad I had the excuse.
I’m not saying that this makes me a good person. Just human.
She has changed. I have changed. After years of quiet desperation, I finally made my bitter peace about that. I’m surrounded by great people. People I’m grateful that are my friends. But I don’t know if I will ever feel like this again — if I will resonate with someone that much again, if I will ever feel again that I have found the second half of my soul. If I will be able to ever trust someone again to let them this close. Is it even possible to feel like this again about someone?
…and finding her again?
Maybe I met her so she would play this role in my life — and it had run its course. But maybe this still isn’t the end of the story. Maybe the “breakup” was just one step and the next is waiting somewhere in the future. Maybe one day, I will learn how everything happened from her side of things. Maybe one day, I will be able to be truly at peace about this relationship.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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