Shelby Stidham

She’ll Want to be There, too.

You drag it around like a ball on a chainYou wallow in the guilt, you wallow in the pain

You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown

Got your mind in the gutter bringin’ everybody down

You bitch about the present and blame it on the past

-The Eagles, Get Over It

Have you ever had a friend who didn’t know how to be happy for you, themselves, or anyone else for that matter? I had this friend–she was my best–for many years. She had all these excuses why her life wasn’t working out the way she had planned but you know what? She didn’t have one single reason why she wasn’t happy. And our whole friendship was a roller coaster. As time went on, I realized I was turning into her. I became moody, jealous, and frequently found myself bitching about why my life was so horrible. I woke up one day and realized we were selfish brats who desperately needed to change. I tried to change with her–I wanted to change with her, I wanted us to become better together. But who was I to try and change anyone? What right did I have? We ended up taking different roads. I became more of the person I wanted to be but the loss of our friendship devastated both of our lives–we went from spending every waking minute together to never seeing each other. Hell, I drove the long way to work for months just so I wouldn’t have to drive past her house. We got together one afternoon and talked and came together again. She fit back into my life like she was never gone. I the same in hers. We both seemed to have learned about life in the months we spent apart–we had a newfound respect for each other and we both seemed to be happier. If it seems too good to be true, they say, then it must be. I had trouble letting go of the things she did to me. The betrayals of confidence, the things that couldn’t be unexplained.. it was all too much and I found myself harboring an unusual amount of resent towards her. When I became frustrating, I took it out on her. When we became angry with each other, we would keep it in and instead take part of childish things like eye rolling, short text messages, and harsh body language. It was all so stupid and immature but we were in a cycle we couldn’t break. We were in our second year in college at this point, and we were both on the hunt for boyfriends. I had about three shitty ones previous to this but she hadn’t any, which created an unspoken and somewhat unconscious tension amongst us when we went out. Eventually I met a guy. It was almost like the two of us were dating him because she helped me out so much with the relationship when I felt like I couldn’t handle it. But then again, we were best friends. As my relationship with this guy progressed (ironically it didn’t progress at all but I wouldn’t really learn that until later) my friendship with her became strained. We fought over silly things and she was jealous of the time I spent with him. It took a full day of crying, sitting with my mom talking it over, and seriously re-evaluating my friendship with her. It was toxic; we needed each other all of the time but we didn’t treat each other the way we should’ve. We were there for each other but we didn’t watch and listen the way friends should. I felt as if the only way we could both be truly happy, 100% happy about ourselves and our lives, is if we weren’t friends. I was confused and I didn’t know what else to do. We had tried talking things out in the past and it didn’t work. As much as I loved her, our friendship was like a bad relationship spirally downwards. So I made the hardest choice I’ve ever had to make and I stopped talking to her. For days I cried, unsure if my decision was right. Weeks went by and we, out of confusion, bad-mouthed each other to common friends. Months went by. There were times where I felt like I had to talk to her. Things would happen and I’d want to call her and share the news. A year passed and I thought of her less and less. Two years have passed now and I think about her still. I wonder if she stills hates me for the choice I made or if she realizes it was the best for both of us? I wonder if she can now accept that we both did things to each other and I wonder if she sees we both played a role in our demise. And I see her around at school. We go out of our way to ignore each other. It’s sad and unfortunate but at this point, I think we both realize things are too far gone to be healed.

To this day I stick by my decision. I still feel like it was the hardest choice I ever had to make. Sometimes I think about all of our good times–high school football games, our cruise to Mexico, boyfriends, inside jokes, obsessions with Johnny Depp, stupid boys we liked, girls we hated, friends we lost, parties we got caught for having–years of memories that we both push aside because the pain of remembering is too great. I flip through scrapbooks and photo albums and I try and remember as much as I can without thinking about what happened. I try to remember, at one time, we were a perfect pair. And on the day of my wedding, when she won’t be there, I will still think of her and know that no matter how she feels, she’ll want to be there, too.