The Friend Fade

I've gone on about ghosting and such before, but a long time ago I did a personal journal about what I like to ominously call "The Fade." It is something that used to wear on me heavily and make my heart hurt, but now, recently in fact, I have healed enough to talk about what it all really means.

If you get on Pinterest you can find a million memes and articles about friends drifting apart and ghosting and outgrowing each other and everything to trigger you back to whatever social stuff you went through that makes you a little more attuned to things now. I've gotten sucked into the Pinterest quote and notes and have mixed feelings about whether or not it is helpful, but you can find some wisdom for sure.

I'll share my experience then, and what I have learned from it and how I use it now, and hopefully it can help some others feel less alone.

Before I had my daughter I had a tight knit group of amazing co-workers and befriended someone physically, spiritually and mentally beautiful. She and her family got my pregnant self, my husband and my newborn and infant through our first year as a family and I will forever feel grateful for them and miss them like crazy. Just typing this I'm welling up. They were the best ever.

I think being around them was our first taste of a second family home in Florida and we loved it. I considered her parents to be my daughters grandparents that were close by and considered her and her sister all aunties. They were our second family in my opinion.

Parenthood was rough on my husband and I. There were so many really uncomfortable and unfavorable things at play during that first year as parents and I struggled as a mother to balance everything. Looking back now, I wish I had been more open with my best friend about what was really going on but I can tell you, my family is still healing from some of the pain and trauma from that time period.

By the time my daughter was three my gorgeous Tampa best friend and I were barely speaking much. She hosted my child's first birthday party and was my greatest help and she was gone from my life, just a name on a friends list, a person in the background. At the time it felt painful, awkward and anxious but after a lot of reflection I now understand how and why we grew apart.

Between my friend getting her own adult life with her wonderful boyfriend together, getting away from parental units and getting into school, and with my being a fresh mom with a workaholic husband and no fun money or availability for much of a social life, the shift started easily, although perhaps I was too tired to call it out for what it was. She did so much for me and I miss her daily.

When I was starting to get into my worst, darkest stages, when I was very lost and beginning my year long struggle with job changes, weight loss and adulting stuff, that was when the fade began. I didn't feel abandoned in a time of need, I felt like I needed to let her grow and thrive because she was considerably younger than me and very much allowed to go and have fun and be young without my old self getting in the way.

The fade started with simply changing a lot of plans often, and things coming up. If it wasn't one of us, it was both of us having a hard time scheduling and committing. As I became less available due to family circumstances, it made it easier for her to step back more and more. The tagging on social media posts stopped. The liking of the pictures and statuses became few and far between. The texts went from daily to every other day to once a week to once every couple weeks to maybe once a month to nothing. 

After a few months of almost no contact I scraped together money for Christmas gifts for her and her sister because she'd at least touch base to say thank you, or so I thought. I figured then I could check in and try and talk to her. I messaged her mom to confirm they received them and she sweetly said her sister loved them. I didn't hear anything from best friend about it. Ever. We didn't speak for 6 month after I sent the gifts, until the car accident.

She messaged me and apologized for the lapse in communication. She said she wanted to come bring us lunch. The day of the plans she fell ill and couldn't come. We did the whole, "another time," song and dance well with each other. I may have messaged her some well wishes about having no malice that we just didn't fit in each other's lives anymore. The cancelled lunch plans, however, that was the last I ever heard from her 3 years ago.

We're still on each other's social media but I check on her and she seemingly doesn't check on me. The people who knew us as besties say they are surprised that we don't talk anymore. I sent her messages just saying, "I hope you know I think the world of you and wish you well," and such for awhile but then just wanted to let her be.

Sometimes I wish I could write her a letter and tell her about how messed up things were and how I wish I had been more aware, awake and engaged with her to be a better friend. I wish I could say I understand how and why she outgrew me but all I want is good things for her and wish we could check in from time to time. I wish I could apologize for not being more present for her issues while wrapped in my own. But I realize that things turned out how they should, whether I like it or not.

About a year after we stopped speaking I realized how badly her exit had messed me up. I spiraled into a very dark, self-hating, world-hating, negative place. It was a learning experience I needed to have. I needed to make the mistakes I made to get me to where I am now, but it still was shitty. I found the wrong kinds of friends on the "rebound" from losing her, which somehow made it all even worse.

Sometimes I think she knew it all. I think she saw me kind of starting to wither and maybe she just couldn't do it so she just politely excused herself from the table and never returned to dinner. I often find myself wishing I could tell her that I'm okay now; I'm better and still working on my growth.

I cry typing right now because I hate that my daughter only has small memories of all that my wonderful ex-bestie and her family did for us. I hung onto so many silly things from her just because I liked remembering when we were good and close and happy. I talk to my daughter about her on occasion. I like to remind my daughter that she has always been surrounded by good people and love, even when we had rough times. 

The friend fade is rough though. She's not the only person it has happened with but I feel like with the rest of the situations, people have moved onto new cities, bigger opportunities and different horizons but we still do that check in on social media or text where we just say, "Hey I'm so glad you are doing this," or "Congrats." Her and I don't even have the check in. We don't have anything anymore, and that still breaks my heart a little.

If she reads my blog, which I highly doubt, then now she knows all this stuff. If not, the hippie part of me just wanted to put this into the universe because it's part of the healing and growing process.

I've experienced other versions of the fade as well, some with a friend return, and others with a complete ghosting effect but none of it is an easy thing. I don't think I'll ever stop wishing we could feel closure with things. I will always want that kind of resolution, but I'm smart enough to realize that's just not how life works. 

My other sad musing is that, we lose out and experience the fade because we hit rough phases of life that we are so engulfed in that we can't adequately share and reach out to those we need the most during such trials. Maybe it is age but I feel like, we often have these friends that we just hold close that we claim are our "everything" and "always," those people that we will never picture our life not having around, and then they move on and we look back fondly but realize that we can actually live without them, perhaps we just enjoyed things more when we had them by our sides.

I lost a lot of good people that I was very close to during my family trauma. I'm just now owning most of it, and finding my way to talk about it with everyone that survived all of my whims and flakiness in the midst of it all. There's been so much shame and regret to work through but I can now have some real conversations about it. 

I still hold hope she'll message me one day. I've seen it happen with other friends and I will always hold hope, even if we're 80, that we can reconnect. I've made peace with the fact we probably won't. To quote Pam Beasley on The Office, "And it only took 3 years to summon the courage."

Losing my previous Tampa bestie has made it easier for me to endure the whims of other friendships and learn how to balance the positive and negative aspects of those relationships too. I've learned that I have to walk away peacefully knowing that, I put the good vibes out there for a friend but they must return and reciprocate by their own free will. I can't make them be the "kind" of friend I want or need in that moment, that day or that situation. 

Losing her has made me appreciate the longevity of other friendships like my Oregon friends from college and my two oldest friends that have known me since Kindergarten and 3rd grade from Pennsylvania. We still talk regularly. Losing her has made me grateful that I had someone like her to call a friend at all. Sometimes it is more bittersweet than other times.

I've seen some sappy articles about this on social media but this one is from the heart. Some of you will know exactly who I wrote this about, and those of you who have never heard me mention her, now you know why. 

I will always be grateful for the role she had in my life. I feel blessed that I knew her when I did. I feel blessed I can still see her on Facebook and Instagram and know that she is doing okay, thriving even. If you have ever lost someone like this, it can trigger many different reactions and emotions. It happens to more people than we can imagine, and it's often a tough tale to tell, but for today I'm glad I shared mine.