Lately, I've spent a lot of time thinking about friendship. The idea of it, the practice of it. Human interactions, in general.
Maybe it's because of the big decision I recently made regarding a personal friendship.
This girl and I are step-cousins and have grown up together, in every sense. (My Dad and I married into their family when I was three.) Rivals as children. Insecure, scared and awkward tweens. Funny and strange stages of finding ourselves from the teen years into our early twenties, where we are now currently stationed.
She's was my maid of honor/only bridesmaid at my wedding.
I was supposed to be her's.
We had plans.
But our friendship is over.
And here is why:
She's not a whole person anymore.
It's a tragedy and I hope she recovers.
She grew up with parents who were (and are) afraid of the world. If something was hard or she didn't want to do it, she didn't have to. Her parents bailed her out.
When we were children, they (she and her brother) LITERALLY ran everyone's lives. If she wanted to do it, THAT'S WHAT WE DID. I was always treated beneath her and her sibling, or as incompetent for my age. Even in spite of them both being younger, her by 11 months to the day and him by 2+ years. That little amount of time makes a whole lot of difference when you're still in the single digits of life.
There was a lot of competition and rivalry, as I mentioned. Which is understandable. She was the center of their universe and here comes in this older, more outgoing little girl to horn in on the parade. They were very welcoming on the outside, but there was a lot of politics and games on the inside. A lot of hateful things were said and done that I only became privy to many years later.
My parents (my step-mother that I consider a true mother and my dad) were always treated in the same manner. They were incompetent parents, because they let me play in the front yard, or sleep in my own room, or WHATEVER normal level of independence for our given age. She and her bro weren't allowed to walk across the street alone 'till they were in high school, to be home alone until they were 16. This is the level of paranoia of these people. I was a very independent child. VERY. It was incomprehensible to this family.
I always did well in school, I always wanted to be an over-achiever. She never was. She was shy to a fault and a push-over to the max. She is VERY smart, but puts herself down to the point where she is literally non-functional. I've tried to persuade her to go to therapy on multiple occasions.
When we were 16 and she was actually trying to overcome it, I completely respected her struggle. However at 21, she began using it as an excuse. "I'm shy, so I don't have to do ____." She still wanted everything to be handed to her! "You were raised differently, that's why you're successful." I'm sorry, but when you're a fully grown adult, YOU are responsible for YOUR OWN life.
The catalyst of our relationship came when I got it in my head to go to Houston (we live in San Antonio, Texas - only a 3 hour car ride) to visit the King Tut museum exhibit before it went back to Egypt in a few weeks. We were both in the anthropology club at the time (this was only a couple months ago) and so this is CLEARLY up our alley! The tickets were on super sale and I found a few great hotel options that I knew were in a perfectly nice area for reasonable pricing. (Did I mention I grew up in Houston? I know what areas to avoid and how to get around!)
Well, she has to ask her parents permission to go.
Permission. At 21 years of age. You fecking kidding me?? Well, before giving permission her mother had to look at hotels herself. Oh, and it wasn't "permission" it's "approval." -.- Semantics. Anyways, remember all the weird/excessive fears of the world? Of course she suggested hotels 45 minutes away in a boring, commercialized suburb of Houston for no apparent reason. It was "safer" and had "so much to do". Yeah right, like more to do than the Museum District or Downtown? Bite me. My nice answer to that was in a text, and I'm quoting here:
Me: "It's nice there, but there aren't really any more things to do there than by the museum and do we really want to add 45 minutes to our drive each way just to get to the museum?"
Her: "Idk I'm trying to compromise."
Me: "Why is Katy or Sugarland so important?"
Her: "She likes the area better than downtown to stay over night."
I proceeded to inform her that only one of the four or five options listed were downtown, so that point was really irrelevant. She then told me she/her mother hadn't checked where the locations were. So they're just assuming that I would choose a shady location on the basis of no evidence whatsoever? THANKS. That's so sweet they think that highly of me. I'm starting to get irritated....
Me: "Okay then what's with the downtown issues?"
Her: "Idk I don't have issues."
I explain that clearly her mother does, even though it is completely irrelevant to our situation currently. And then I'm frustrated! Every time we want to do something we have to please the whole fam-damnily because she doesn't have a backbone to save her own life.
Me: "Sighhh. This shouldn't be so complicated! Do we want to go? I do. Do we have transportation? Yes. Do we have the money to afford it? I do. Determine when. Determine lodging if necessary. That's all! Decide when before we have to appease the Gods."
Her: "What do you mean by the last part"
(Oh, please. You just texted to me for a half hour about having to compromise with your gddmn parents...)
Me: "It's hard to have to make plans with your parents instead of you. It's just hard."
And JUST FECKING GUESS WHAT SHE REPLIES!
Her: "They're fine with it. They're not giving me a hard time she just suggested it. You don't need to get pissed."
Let me quote what she said not five minutes earlier.... "Moms cranky but open to it. Have to run it by dad -.- The hard part lol" Does that not sound like a hard time that she is explaining to me??
Let's bare in mind a few other facts:
She has a curfew.
She has to text when she leaves and arrives at somewhere to avoid parental panic.
She was not allowed to stay over at my house when I first moved in with Chris (now, husband - then, boyfriend) because it was "unsafe." Did I mention I live in a gated community and he is a police officer for the city? How much safer can you get??
Among many, many, many others.
She then proceeds to tell me about how they didn't put up much of a fight about it and made up other excuses for their actions such as work stress and such. Clearly, this was just alllll in my head. I wonder WHERE I could have gotten these notions!
This is when I realized she is not the person I grew up with and used to know.
You know,
the smart and funny girl.
The girl who didn't let boys and other people who shall remain nameless *cough* Doug *cough* walk all over her and use her.
The girl that didn't take her own self-hate out on rampant, mean-hearted judgement of others.
The girl who didn't hate and starve herself.
The girl who was honest about her own life and issues.
The girl who didn't reason away what she used to hope to fix...
And then I realized something else...
She hasn't been that girl for a very, very, very long time.
In fact, maybe she never was that girl.
Maybe that was just what I hoped for and wanted to see.
I effectively ended the friendship through a single text, with every bit of my years of frustration and anger and sadness showing.
Her: "Forget it."
Me: "No, I don't think I will forget it. I think I'm going to follow my own advice I give you about Doug and about finally having to accept this bullshit or not be friends. It's funny you should mention that because you are a pro at talking down to people. [She said I was patronizing her in earlier texts.] I love how you pretend like your assertive, I know better. How come you can only be assertive to me?? All I've ever wanted out of this friendship is for you to do your own shit and be your own fucking person. I'm done with this. Have fun relying on, making excuses for and bowing down to others for the rest of your life. Bye."
I mourn the loss of the good in that relationship and in her.
I am no model of perfection, but I am a full believer in the power of intentions and honesty and communication. And when a person get's to a certain level of self-delusion, that's just not possible anymore.
Maybe you think I'm being dramatic? I respect that, perhaps I am? But I stand by my principles and my hope for her to do better for herself and want better for herself. You just have to live it to understand.
I think about her first time moving out (if she ever becomes her own person and that happens...)
Her wedding.
Our babies.
All the future family moments we'll never have.
A true shame.
I wonder if she mourned, too.
