Now you're just somebody that I used to know in Just A Day In The Life

I had one of those “5 years ago today” posts pop up on my Instagram yesterday of a picture of me with my best friend from college. It made me sad to see such a happy memory of a person I’m no longer in contact with.

We were roommates my first year in college and it stayed that way until our final year. She moved out of our house and in with her girlfriend. I was happy for her and I was excited that she was starting a new chapter, I just didn’t realize it would be without me. After she moved out she barely kept in contact with me. This was shocking not only to me but to our mutual friends (a lot of whom she also cut off) because she and I were attached at the hip for the majority of our friendship. We called each other “Sister” and I believed it.

After she cut ties it took me a long time to heal. Honestly, it was one of the worst breakups I’ve been through. Friend breakups can hurt worse than romantic ones. The person you go to is no longer there for you. Years of friendship going down the drain for no apparent reason is gut-wrenching. She has never told me what happened or why she cut contact with me. She just stopped responding and when she did it was an “I can’t make it” or “sorry, I’m busy”.

Looking back on it years later I can see that she pushed me away because I loved her when she couldn’t. I think me loving her when she hated herself made her upset. She somehow resented me for seeing the good in her. To this day I don’t hate her for what she did to me. I feel for her and how much she must be hurting that caused her to cut off so many of the people who loved her.

I also think she was still struggling with her sexuality and I believe it bothered her that I didn’t care about sexuality. I never worried about my sexual orientation and have never really struggled with the morality of it because I was raised by an extremely accepting family. I have family members that are gay, disabled, and of different ethnicities. So, when I expressed the fact that being queer never bothered me I think it struck a nerve in her because it was tough for her to come to terms with her sexuality. My sexuality doesn’t matter to me. I prefer to not make it something that describes me. Is being queer part of who I am? yes, but it’s not something I go parading around because I don’t think sexuality defines me. I think she thought that because my sexuality didn’t matter to me it meant I was hiding it or ashamed of it in some way. She felt the need to make it part of HER identity in a way I didn’t care to.

I hope one day we can reconnect and finally talk about what happened. Even better, I hope that we could be friends again. I don’t hate her for doing what she did although I probably should. It hurts me still but I have come to peace with it. Even if we never reconnect I think I’ll be ok with that.