I woke up from a dream that brought up a lot for me. I dreamed that I was living in Portland with Katie, and we had a big house together. We needed a roommate or two for some unoccupied space in the downstairs. Who should come knocking at our door to apply for the space, but Becky Martinez (Fitzgerald now).
So I’ll interrupt this dream share to say that Becky just got married, and I’ve been seeing all these posts from all of our mutual friends who were at the wedding, and it hurts. I wish it didn’t, and I’m trying hard to let it go, but I can’t help it. I was not invited, to my knowledge. Unless she sent an invitation to my parents address in the last month and a half that I haven’t been there, but come on. I would have heard about that. They would have told me. So pretty much everyone I was close to in the CCM circle was at this wedding–Tim, Melissa, Matt Morrell, Laura Mack, and others, and then also William, Babbie, Gina, and Katie Beckman. The feelings I’m feeling take me back to middle school, seeing all their photos pop up, and with each one, feeling more distant, cut off, left out, and hurt. Like my insecurities that cropped up once in awhile in college about not really belonging have been validated. It also has this terrible secondary effect of thinking critically about my character flaws and everything that’s wrong with me. It feels stupid and petty. I haven’t let anything have power over me like this in a long time.
The worst part, and the truth of it is, I don’t really see why she would have invited me, except to preserve my feelings and the hurt that comes from being left out. But it’s her wedding, and that’s sort of ridiculous. You don’t invite people to your wedding to make them feel good. You invite them because they are your good friends and family. Becky and I are not good friends. The last time we were was probably during our junior year of college. We haven’t really been in touch for years. The last time I saw her was when she and Babbie swung by Portland for a visit in November of 2008. And the only reason I really remember that is because I got my tattoo during their visit.
At any rate, the thing that happened between us at the end of college is haunting me, and I really feel like she’s punishing me for it. But how could that be? That’s so childish. I’m trying to give her more credit than that.
See, by the end of college, Becky had been my roommate for 2 years, together with Chelsea for both of those years, Katie for one year, and Babbie for one year as well. It did not go well. She was a really challenging roommate. And as a result, our friendship was pretty different by the end of those two years than it was at the beginning.
The big “thing” that happened though, was that Katie and Chelsea and I had planned this big graduation camping trip, and did not invite her. I say it that way, because I think this is the way that she perceived it, and she was pretty hurt. But the thing is, we had been planning some version of this trip since our freshman year. Katie and Chelsea and I were best friends. We didn’t invite Babbie either, and she seemed unaffected by it as well as respectful of our friendship. Did Becky approach me? Talk to me about it? Explain her feelings? Try to work it out? No. This is how I know that Becky was hurt:
A few weeks before graduation, she returned late one night to the apartment to tell me about the fantastic night she had just had with all of our mutual male musician friends–without me. Riding around on the “drunk bus” playing all these cover tunes and engaging hilarious drunk people. She went on and on about how much fun she had and her tone seemed so vindictive to me. It really felt like she was saying “you leave me out, I’ll leave you out! And I’ll drag our other friends into it too!” There was always this weird feeling between Becky and me that our friendship with these guys was some sort of contest. Like only one of us could be the token “girl” in the group. I hated that. I didn’t like that feeling at all, and I didn’t feel like it needed to be that way. But I always felt like she was pushing it, trying to prove that she was more a part of their group than I was, especially because of her relationship with Dean (now her husband of a few weeks). This event was the last straw.
That thing with the music on the drunk bus really hurt me. At that moment, I decided I wasn’t going to try anymore to be her friend. I decided she was a “tomb” friend, because it wasn’t just that, but other things that had piled up over the years. Her passive aggressive manipulations that made me feel guilty or wrong when I don’t really think I was. The way she often didn’t respect or understand that the apartment belonged to all 4 of us and there are certain things that you need to abide by to respect that. i.e., giving your boyfriend a key without consulting anyone else; coming home in the middle of the night and waking everyone else up with a loud, grand entrance; eating food that belonged to other people without replacing it; making a total disaster of our shared bathroom every day, though her roommate made grand efforts to keep it clean; etc. And her explosive anger and insistence on being right about even little things. Like the time she came home in a rage because her manicure had been dinged, and so she exclaimed that she was going to march right back over to the beauty salon and demand that it be retouched, or refunded.
But the thing is that now, with all these years and space from it, I sort of feel like I think some of her hurt at our graduation plans was justified. It totally sucks to be left out. Even if she didn’t handle it the right way, even if she ended up making it worse, those feelings she had may have been legitimate. How can you help what you feel? And now, I feel like in a way, she’s giving me my last desserts.
So stepping back into my dream, Becky arrived at our house just after her honeymoon, to check out the space. But I felt in the dream, the real reason she was there was to rub it in (my lack of invitation). I told her I thought it might be good for us to have a talk, to clear the air of some old pain. She agreed. But first she had some errands to run, and then she’d come back for a coffee and a chat in the evening. At this point in the dream I was left alone to organize my thoughts. I went through everything in the above explanation in my head. And I arrived at the conclusion that this conversation was going to lead us no where. That she wouldn’t likely see things my way, wouldn’t remember what a difficult roommate she was, how hard it was sometimes to be her friend. And that maybe those parts weren’t really relevant anyway. I decided that what would likely result would just be an argument, similar to those we had as roommates, and that it wouldn’t be likely to get us anywhere. And then I woke up.
And now I’m feeling a mix of icky things that I want to just let go of. Thankfully, the wedding posts have died down. But it’s interesting (and awful) how one icky memory and bad feeling connected to guilt and self-deprecating thoughts brings up a string of others. So I have all these negative things circling around my head–all the times I messed up, all the times I hurt someone, all the times I didn’t make amends or patch it up, but instead just let the moment pass. Ugh I feel in such a cloud. And in the setting I’m in now, with new people everywhere, I always have a bit of trouble with over-analyzing what I’ve said and done. The two things are connected. I’m in that pointless spiral of criticizing my negative qualities; “you talk too much, you don’t listen well to others, you’re such a show off, you’re so self important, you always over-share, you’re so attention-seeking, approval-seeking, validation seeking, your ego is out of control” on and on.
I need to take some time to breathe. I need to remind myself that it’s ok that I’m not perfect. That I am human. And that my friends who know me well understand that and accept me. I know my good qualities, too. I just need to find the balance. A place where I can see myself clearly enough be honest with my flaws and keep on working on growth, but also celebrate my strengths and love who I am. Sigh. Poco a poco.
Loading comments...