It’s now the weekend, so I’m switching gears from my work woes to some other stuff that’s recently transpired.
Remember last month I went to my 30-year high school reunion? I was posting photos on Facebook along the way, talking about how I was ready to see all my old friends, yada yada.
Well, as I was flying out I got a FB message from an old college girlfriend who became one of my close friends because she was very good friends with the girl who was my roommate. She and her roomie would hang out with me and my roomie. We were in the band together at our university (lots of backstory there!).
Anyway, her message wished me well on my journey to see my high school buddies, but then it went on to say that, even though she knew my old college roomie and I weren’t speaking, she wanted to let me know that roomie’s youngest sister had died suddenly and that roomie was going to be close by where the HS reunion was taking place, making arrangements for the funeral, etc. and that she thought that I should know.
For reference, let’s call my old roomie Lois Lane (because she was a journalism major and she was on the university newspaper staff and always, always writing on her awesome word processor/typewriter). I grew to love Lois like the big sister I never had. Lois was a year older, much wiser, and lots of wild fun! She showed me the ropes of the university (since she was a sophomore during my freshman year), introduced me to her friends, got me into her sorority, shared boyfriend stories and introduced me to tons of guys, and was my source for pretty much everything that first crazy year of college.
We were roommates for two years.
During those two years, we had so, so, so many highs and lows. Though I loved her like a big sister, I also fought with her with a passion I’d never known before! That bitch could press my buttons like no other, and I think I did the same with her. We were such fierce friends, but we were like arch enemies sometimes. Our fights in our dorm room were so epic that people would mock them when they walked down the hall, screaming “FUCK YOU, BITCH!!” and other things.
It was disturbing to me when we fought like that. So disturbing that I thought maybe I had a problem…mostly I thought it might be a drinking problem, but it was a problem nonetheless. I wasn’t sure what to do with those feelings, and Lois Lane did NOT help. In fact, she’d always put the blame squarely back on my shoulders for whatever argument we had. I found myself apologizing time after time, but never quite sure what I was apologizing for.
I moved out after two years of living together because I couldn’t take the drama anymore. I moved in with three other girls in an apartment, and things felt so much better - no screaming, and much more laughter. I was relieved to know I could have a roommate situation that was fight-free. I was relieved to know that it wasn’t ALL me, you know?
After I moved out, my relationship with Lois Lane became much more distant. I hurt her feelings, but I was still mad at her for being such a volatile friend. I’d still see her at sorority meetings and events, but she and I backed way off of the big sister/little sister friendship and I let it fade ever so slightly, not really thinking a whole lot about it…just normal girlfriend relationship stuff, right? We were still friends, just not as tight (or tightly wound) as we once were. I still liked her a lot and valued her friendship, just at more of a distance.
More life happened to put distance between us, ALL of the friends, both literally and figuratively. I transferred schools, moving 5 states away. We all graduated. We all moved on and went our separate ways. We all started working and some of us married, some of us had babies, some of us traveled the world with our jobs. You know, life.
She called me one time after several years. It was during a particularly dark point of her life. She had been working for the Associated Press and had gotten fired in a dramatic fashion and I guess she had been going through a crisis. She told me that she knew why we fought a lot during college and said she had been diagnosed with manic depression/bipolar disorder and that was the reason. No apologies (not that I was looking for any), just an explanation…which explained a LOT.
But I wasn’t sure what to do with that information, so I just tucked it away. We lost touch again.
Then Facebook happened and we all got back in touch! We were all friending and celebrating our friendships and OH LOOK AT US NOW!! So many friendships rekindled and all of the joy that came out of that. But someone was missing from my Facebook wall of friends: Lois Lane. I knew I’d requested her friendship, so I went back and look. She’d declined my request. I thought surely that’s a mistake, so I requested her again. Decline. I’m pretty sure I actually requested a third time at some point. Decline.
I finally let it rest, though my feelings were a little hurt, especially since she was friends with everyone else in our circle of friends. I could even sometimes see her photos show up with mutual friends at football games and other events. It was a weird feeling, but I figured she just had her reasons and after I’d tried to reach out to her three times, I let it go.
Flash forward to the reunion last month and our mutual friend’s text about Lois Lane’s youngest sister’s death (LL had two younger sisters - one was only a year younger than me and the youngest was about 10 years younger). She’d died suddenly of a brain aneurysm by the pool at their mother’s house!
I knew I needed to reach out, but I wasn’t yet sure how or in what form. I asked our friend to send me all of Lois Lane’s information so I could contact her during my trip and see if there was maybe some way to meet or if I could visit. I couldn’t just go and not acknowledge that I was so close. Lois and I may have had a strained relationship in the past, but this was something that I needed to at least try to get the message across that I was nearby and could help if she needed it.
Turns out, I didn’t have to do the reaching out…
to be continued
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