Saturday, June 2, 2007

Born of a jealous rage.

Okay, a jealous rage may be too strong a front for this, but what made me decide to do an actual "blog" outside of the world of myspace was an old friend. Not out of her support, but of her lack of it... or of anything. I've realized a lot that people don't try as hard to be nice as they get older. I don't know whether or not to be thankful for the honesty or mournful for the loss of decency. Either way, the situation is a former friend, a very close or even best friend who has "moved on." This is probably my fault but I can still think of all the times I was a good friend to her. I hadn't known her for too long but we had so much in common. We met while working the same job and going to rival high schools, found that we were both Editor-in-Chief of our award winning newspapers. We were both going to college for journalism, loved design, and movies and had similiar personalities. When she left to be a camp counselor over the summers, I made sure she had plenty of mail and gift packages with her name on it. When she left for college and I was still living at home, I made her a scrap book of all our friends. Without getting too detailed, I can say that I was most likely the one who messed up a good friendship, though the details are hazy now. I became so desperate not to lose this boy that I was seeing and ridiculously hooked on, that I didn't care who got in my way. I eventually moved to Florida and we lost touch for years. I found out through friends of friends that she was engaged to a mutual friend and co-worker. I was thrilled for her but when I tried to contact her through myspace she ignored me for a long time before telling me that we had outgrown a friendship that wasn't worth rekindling. I accepted this, hurtful as it was and watched as all of our former friends who had meant much less to her than I at one time made it into her circle of friends. Some of which even got invites to the wedding. It was really kind of a slap in the face and whatever I had done, I can't imagine it was worth this kind of pain. I've always been fairly sensitive to the feelings of others. From there, I noticed a comment regarding a column she was writing for the paper. Sure enough, I looked it up and there it was. She had a column writing about preparations for her wedding. It wasn't badly written, but it could have been done more humorously and good natured. After all, don't you choose to bear the burden of planning for a wedding? I purposely chose not to. Anyhow, it got me thinking that I had always wanted to have a column and I knew I could do better than that. I knew I could do better than her. It sounds terrible and it was even hard to type that sentence. We are in similiar fields and have similiar loves and interests so the fact that I feel so stepped on by her is the only reason I can even bring myself to feel a competitve streak in the matter. I have no intention of competing with her, contacting her, or anything again. I have gone out of my way to tell her how happy I am for her and offer my support despite her cold shoulder. I hope I can just forget it-- and with her, I would have to forget that portion of my life. Its all connected. So maybe its good that I want to make a "blog." Something for me. Probably few will read it, but at least I'll have an outlet. Hell, it feels good to get that off my chest- an ex-friend out of my head and heart. The reason I thought of doing this in the first place and the guilt behind it. This is my first post here, though I plan to repost several older blogs that I enjoyed writing and hope serve as a laugh or an insight into what I feel would be interesting stories to tell. Then maybe my degree that's only halfway finished in the journalism field won't go to a total waste. P.S. We're both professional graphic designers now, not journalists.

3 comments:

Monster Librarian said...

I know who you are talking about and that is shitty. I still love you and all our Fenton Cinema times are some of my best memories from h.s!

Kate Jenkins said...

You know, I've had a similar thing happen to me in the past year. Only one of my best friends and I decided to move into a duplex together....... and somehow (still unknown to me) I 'ruined' our friendship and is now friendshit. I thought that us living together would work out because we both are so laid back -- which I guess is what killed it in the end. Really I just wanted to get the hell out of my parents house. Anyway, I ran into her probably about a month ago the weekend after my painfully uneventful 25th birthday. It was probably as awkward as a giraffe making out with an anteater. There we sat in a room with two other people waiting to get pedicures...... the silence was slowly choking the life out of me, so I tried to start up a small convo. Of course, she would hardly even look at me (as if I raped her father and had a lovechild with her boyfriend). She was very short with me dispite my friendly positive attitude. After a few minutes of trying to converse with the brick wall, I couldn't help it, but I started shaking. I'm not afraid of this girl-- I could blow her away with one huff of my monstrous chest. I was angry, sad and anxious and couldn't control it. I almost went off on her in front of the small audience to find out what the reason is for her being so completely rebitchulous to me. Fortunately for her, at that moment my name was called. She was saved by the bell. So I stood up and looked at her in the face and said 'Bye, have a good one'. No answer.......... not surprised. I still have no "closure". And it sucks too, because she knows a LOT of the same people I do. I'm actually surpised I hadn't run into her before then. So I guess what I'm trying to say is this-- who needs a person that won't even share with you WHY they dislike you or where you went wrong ......??? Hears to being clueless.

JennPav said...

Fenton Cinema was my high school memories. Well, that and Spanish with Senora Deming. haha. In her defense, I believe that the reason she hates me is because I dropped everything and left everyone I loved to follow a stupid boy (seriously stupid as in no high school diploma) to Florida. I was pretty much too ashamed to call most of my friends. But staying in touch is a two way street and I was a good friend to her and I will always believe that. So Kate, I feel your pain too. What the heck is up with people? I could never treat someone like that for two reasons.
1. I wouldn't have the guts to make someone feel bad because I couldn't live with that guilt. If I ever made someone feel bad, it wasn't on purpose.
2. I don't believe that growing up means you don't have room in your life for old friends. I can't think of any old friend that I have ever had who I wouldn't want to hear a nice hello from. Sure, I may not have time to go out to bars or spend hours on the phone, but I'm always someone who would be there if you needed me. Period. You're right, though. Its not worth my time. Treasure who is, I believe.

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