Holding the Stone

Don and I have been running partners for over a decade.  It's amazing how much you can share in ten years of long runs together. There's been a lot of time to talk during our time pounding the NYC pavement and chug, chug, chugging up hills.  The things we've shared in those talks have made us close friends.

     I met Don and his family at church. I've been on weekend retreats with his wife and children, I've been to their home for dinner. Since Don is also a Methodist pastor, when Mike and I finally decided to get married, my friend officiated our Wedding Cookout.
     After 20+ years of marriage, Don and his wife are getting divorced, and anyone who's been through a divorce knows that it's awful even under the "best" of circumstances.  The last time Don and I ran together, it was obvious that although he was the initiator and feels that ending their relationship is the right choice, he's devastated.  He misses his children, he misses his church community (he lost custody of us~), and he misses a name he made for himself, because his name is being muddied a bit.  There are hard feelings.  Blame has been placed squarely on the shoulders of the one who left.
     I've been an outside observer of their marriage for years.  And while I've offered my two cents at times, I've mostly tried to listen and offer support... and stay out of it.
     I was still just a confidante and running partner until I received an email from Don's wife about a week after our last run together.  She wanted to know if I could call her when I got a chance.
     My first thought was that something bad had happened to my friend.  He'd been so unhappy when I saw him.  Was he hurt?  And worse, had he hurt himself?  I immediately emailed her back with my phone number.
     The phone rang and there we were together, unsure of how to go about this.  Had we ever talked on the phone before?  I couldn't remember, but it was odd in that moment, under the circumstances. After a minute of niceties, she took a breath and I held mine.  I thought I was prepared for the worst.
     "Stories have come up that my husband was romantic with his running partner, and the only running partner I knew was you.  So, I'm sorry to ask you this... but were you and my husband ever romantically involved?"
     What?
     My face registered the shock but she couldn't see. I shook my head like I was dizzy from a solid blow to the head. Caught off-guard was an understatement. I told her, no, that her husband and I had never been anything more than friends, that our relationship had always been platonic. I sat on the other end of that line with my mouth agape as she continued on, justifying her call by saying "a number of women" had come forward. What that meant, I don't know. She said that she could have just asked Don but probably wouldn't have believed his answer if he'd denied it.  She had thought that if she asked me, she would be more certain.  She thanked me and, again, said that she was sorry to ask.
   
     If you're sorry to ask, you probably shouldn't.

     During our phone conversation, I had somehow managed to keep the focus off the personal affront and on the person in pain on the other end of the line.  But after I hung up, a righteous fire started in my belly.  How dare she?!  Who does she think I am?  How could she belittle our friendship?  Accuse me of an affair?
     When I told Mike about the phone call and the accusation, he shouted, "He married us!"  I nodded as my husband told me that if he were me, he would have told that woman that she had no right to call and that she needed help.  His indignation made me feel good and justified in my righteousness.
     It's been months since all this went down, and I'm still having trouble processing it. It still sits in my stomach like a stone... a stone I'd like to throw... hard.

     What I've come up with is this. There are two lessons that resonate... at least two that I can pinpoint.  I'm sure there will be more.

1. There are times when it's just not about us.  It's not personal.  People are in pain and they think, do, and say all kinds of crazy. Those dark times can swallow people whole and sometimes, like a drowning man, they pull others into the swells with them.  They're not trying to hurt others; they're trying to save themselves.
2. Righteousness is dangerous... and impossible to sustain.  As righteous as I have felt, and as angry as I've been, I have to remember that I've had my own dark times.  I've thought, done and said all kinds of crazy. Others offered me grace when I didn't necessarily deserve it, and were able to see past the injury I'd inflicted to my own personal pain.  It's valuable to remember that someone paid it forward for me now that it's my turn to do it for someone else.  

     I still see Don's wife at church.  We don't acknowledge each other - she may be embarrassed, angry or a host of other things, and I'm still unsure how to be more gracious than just being hands-off.  

     I'd really like to throw that stone.  I'd like to cock my arm back and send that baby flying.  I'd like to angrily hurl a rock high into the air.  I'm just not sure where I want it to land. Too much pain out there already.

     The longer I hold the stone, the cooler and smoother it feels between my fingers.  I rub it like a worry stone.  It will stay here, as a reminder.

It's Never So Simple

It's never as simple as anger allows me to think it is.
Being angry allows me to pinpoint and shut down.  It feels powerful... for a while... until I realize how  tiring it is and how alone I feel.

This little blog of mine is not normally an update of my daily goings on - It is not meant to be the place where I share every fascinating detail of my everyday minutiae or to work out whatever issues I have.  I really hate those blogs.  Get a Twitter account or a therapist already.  But today I'm going to make an exception, because it's warranted after my last posting.  I need to offer you, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story."

First, I'm amazed by how many friends across my spectrum have reached out after reading the post to share their own personal experience of a friendship break-up. (Thank you for sharing those stories with me - You know who you are~)  I'm not amazed that bad break-ups happen, just amazed by how many folks wanted and needed to connect to share their hurt/anger/bewilderment/sense of abandonment/general bad and sad feelings.  And by the way, they weren't all women my age.  They spanned generations and gender. A close high school guy friend wrote a really touching note about the post and then alluded to losing his best friend.  It's been a painful subject for years.  I can't remember a time when we've gotten together that he hasn't brought up the topic. Amazing how sucky it can feel.

Second, I'm humbled by the complexity of it all...

So, here's the update. It took me a couple of days, but I sent the blog post to my friend. When I did it, I felt a sense of empowerment.  Take that! I thought. You hurt me and now I'm putting it all to rest.  Done!

But that's not how this story goes, and looking at it now, I'm thankful for an alternate ending.

My friend answered back in just a few hours.  Her email was a combination of beautiful note, heartfelt apology, explanation of a different side of the story, and a timeline of her post-breakup life.  Post-break-up sounded terrible. I felt for my friend.  I heard her familiar voice as I read her words and I thought, how did this all end up feeling so personal?  The initial breakup did happen, but as I put our two stories together, there's a muddiness.  What really did happen, and how much of it was open to interpretation?  And holy cow, there were 18 years in between that had nothing to do with our friendship... it was LIFE taking over.  LIFE got in the way of either of us reaching out and mending fences. Why go back and try to rehash and restart that friendship when we were each holding on for dear life to LIFE as it was happening?

And let's be fair.  None of us has been a perfect friend.  I have several embarrassing low points when I dropped the ball and hurt a friend, and I didn't fix it.  There are times when I've looked back and thought, I should have fixed that and I didn't and now it just seems too late.

It is never as simple as anger and hurt let us believe.

I know that I said I was ready for a clean slate, and I am.  And I hope my old/former/renewed friend will join me to decorate it.

D*mn You, Facebook.

It started with (of all things) a Facebook Friend Request.
A request I've been waiting for for 18 years.

The request came from the woman who was once my maid of honor.  


We had become fast friends a couple of years before on an 8-month, 8-country European tour of the all-Americana musical, Oklahoma!  I was 24 at the time, and she'd felt like one of my first real post-college adult girlfriends.  I loved talking with her, sharing books with her, running through German landscapes and exploring cities with her.  She was a grounding force for me.  It was an intense tour, and the moments when I felt the most broken, she was a generous friend. 

The year after the tour, we settled a few blocks away from each other in NYC and both tried to figure out our next life steps.  Auditioning was going well for me, but she was considering a career change.  We both had complicated long-distance semi-boyfriends and short-term NYC dating until I met my polar opposite, Adam, and got engaged to him 11 weeks later. The year was jam-packed with big life shifts.

Of course I asked her to be my maid of honor, my sole bridal party.  She was my closest girlfriend.

Not long after the wedding, my friend candidly told me that she didn't want to be friends with me anymore.  I was stunned.  I remember fishing for specifics for the break-up, but got generalities.  I'd never done anything to hurt her personally - nothing that she was willing or able to divulge to me anyway. To this day, I'm still flummoxed. I can only guess that she didn't like the way things had developed between Adam and me.  She may not have liked him or who I'd become with him.  It had been a whirlwind year and I'd been caught up in what now looks like a string of bad judgment calls.  Truthfully, if I'd had to witness a year of one of my close friends' unhealthy choices, I might have turned off, too.   Maybe I would have slowly melted away, gotten too busy to make dinner dates... I have drifted away from a friend or two before.  But would I have formally broken up with her?  Maybe my friend felt like I deserved a true cutting of ties - maybe she thought it was kinder to offer something concrete and definite.  I'm definitely someone who appreciates resolution, but I couldn't find a grounding for it all. What would I have done if I were her?

My friend broke up with me twice.  She thought she could give our friendship another chance, but after a week (weak?) second try, she confirmed the end.  The words I vividly remember her saying were, "I just don't value our friendship anymore."  Ouch.  That didn't seem kind; that seemed harsh.

I felt really lost and confused by it.  We had mutual friends, one in particular that I was still close with.  I'd ask him about her occasionally, and every time felt like a self-inflicted wound.  She eventually moved across the country and I found comfort in the distance of place and time.

And then, Facebook ruined everything.

A while ago, I'd searched her name and found her.  I was curious and masochistic, I guess.  Who hasn't searched the names of people who have broken your heart, folks who have done you wrong, or ones who got away?  So I found her, but did nothing.  It wasn't my place to do anything.  In my mind, there was plenty to be said initially, but not by me. 


Last week, I got a Facebook Friend Request from her.  No message attached, no note, just the request.  
And I got really, really angry.  
Now I'm in this impossible situation. I can't just dismiss the request and I can't just accept it.  Oh, it's just Facebook!  Who cares!  Can't I be a grown up about it?  


No, I can't.  No, I won't.  I'm furious that I can't treat this "Friend" request as casually as she has. She is not someone from my periphery, not some kid I sang with in middle school chorus class eons ago. Someone I loved broke up with me and has decided that after 18 years, she owes me no explanation, no apology, nothing but a lame click of a button to wipe the slate clean.  

But...

Today, I'm humbled by just how debilitating anger can be.

So, now what?  Perhaps I'll send her these words and let her try and make sense out of them.  Here's my click of a button, I guess.  With it, I'll wipe my own slate clean.

It's messy...

Yesterday, I finally caught up with a close friend, a woman I love, respect, admire, and always wish I could spend more time with.  We try to see each other for a monthly dinner, but time's gotten away from the two of us.  Life always seems to get in the way of our plans.

There are very few people I like to talk with on the phone, but she's one of the few.  This friend is someone I can talk shop with for hours, because she knows her stuff about teaching, and her excitement and willingness to brainstorm ideas is never-ending.  Her voice is so animated over the phone that I can hear the speed with which she's wildly gesturing on the other end.   She'll stand in front of her bookshelf and yell out titles of books I MUST read - the woman's a treasure trove.  I am so lucky to count her in my circle.

After a solid hour of unit planning, text sharing, and getting generally fired up about the work we do,  I asked about the rest of her life... and the air left the conversation.  Her answer was stilted and obviously uncomfortable for her.

I knew her mother had been battling sickness for a while, but my friend confessed that it's come to the end.

"The end."  The time when lawyers and doctors enter the picture, when plans are put on hold, when vacation time is reviewed, when calendars are cleared for the imminent.  The eminent.

To say the relationship between my beautiful friend and her mother has been complicated is an understatement. It seems the brilliant, generous, accomplished woman I know has never been enough for her mother, and her mother has always been sure to tell her ungrateful daughter how disappointed she's been with her.  That selfish girl moved away and never calls or visits or supports enough.  After all her mother did for her... gave her strict discipline... a good beating when necessary. It must have been necessary.

The hard truth is that some relationships can't be mended or resolved.  Sometimes we have to resolve those relationships on our own, no matter how much we'd like them to be a joint effort.  My friend has been trying to do just that for years.  But "the end" complicates an already complicated situation.

My heart hurts for my friend. I know that the death of her mother won't be the end of the pain, it will be a new chapter of it.  It will entail not only dealing with her own complex grief, but helping others with their own, of trying to reconcile who her mother may have been to others while not being a loving mother to her at all. It will be the beginning of sifting through what is left and trying to rise above.

I don't know how a person does that.  I know that she will, because my friend is exceptional, but it humbles me to know that even with support around her, she will still experience part of this mourning alone... there are personal dragons that must be slain by one.

...

Today I came home from work to find a large manilla envelope for me in the mail pile.  I picked it up and immediately recognized my dad's handwriting.  Opening it, I found my copy of a cover letter addressed to my brother and me, signed by both of our parents.

The letter outlined their most recent estate plan and newly executed End Care documents. I sat down and read through the documents with my hand unconsciously over my heart.  What could be a more loving and heartfelt gift from our parents than to try and make their departure from this world as easy as possible for us, their children?  They've made sure that every situation has been laid out and considered.  They've cleaned up every possible extra mess.  Oh, don't mistake me, my mourning the loss of my parents will be very, very messy.  It is inconceivable to me as I write this.  But it won't be messy because of anything they've overlooked or forgotten or refused to deal with.  They are handling all of their business.  They will simply leave us, and that is as unbearable as I think I can manage.

Our parents have offered us something that is utterly invaluable.  My brother and I have been adults for many years now, and our parents have treated us as such, but ultimately we all know we are still their children.  They are still taking care of us.  There is a logic to what they have done.

How I wish my friend was blessed with a parent who can lead, who can be the strong figure who takes care of her child the way my parents still thoughtfully care for my brother and me.

I am so humbled by their gift.

Jay

When I was a kid, I wrote extensively in my journals (which sounded much more mature than "diaries") about how much I wished for an older sister, an older brother, and a younger sister.

I had a younger brother.

God's punishment to a 10-year-old girl, apparently.

I was not a nice older sister.  I played pranks on my brother, I said horrible things, I tortured that kid.  And I don't remember his deflecting my cruelty very well.  I remember a lot of yelling for Mom, crying and running away.

That all ended the day I was 13 and he was 11 when I pushed him to the breaking point and he punched me in the face.  (I'll pause so you can cheer.)

Something shifted for us.  Or more, something shifted for me.  I can't say my brother changed because he'd always been a sweet kid.  I guess I finally started appreciating what other people already did. Maybe the punch knocked some sense into me.

(Disclaimer: Do not try this strategy at home.)

In high school, Jay was involved in community theater and took classes at a local performing arts studio.  His encouragement got me involved too, and pretty soon, he and I had a common group of friends.  We hung out together.  We actually had fun together.  My brother became my friend.

I went off to college - to Syracuse - to major in theater.  When it was his turn to look at colleges, I lobbied for him to join me.  My brother decided instead to go to Florida State where all theater majors were tan, in-shape and happy.  (Not only was my brother kind, he was smart.)  Since this was pre-Internet, we wrote letters, sent cards, called... He was a grounding force.

My first professional theater job after graduating from college was in Roanoke, Virginia, and wouldn't you know, I got to work with my brother.  It was pure summer camp! Man, we had a blast.  In the fall, I moved to NYC to live the dream and Jay went back to college.  Surprise, surprise - The theater world wasn't as psyched to see me as I thought it would be, and when I visited Jay at school, I conjured up this hair-brained idea that I'd move down to Tallahassee to write while he finished school.  I told him how cool it would be if we got an apartment together.

(Doesn't that sound like fun?  Have your sister invite herself to join you for your college experience?)

But my brother is kind and smart and compassionate.  He let me down easy and said I was just scared of the transition.  Hang in there, he said.  I did and it ended up working out pretty well, I think.

Fast forward 20-some years and a lot more life transitions and huge events.

So here we are now.  Jay lives three subway stops away with his great family (wife and 3 kids).  Last night I went to his sons' school's fundraiser, which Jay had not only helped to organize but performed in.  I watched him onstage with such... awe.  I was suddenly so overwhelmed by the rich lives we have lived and our shared experiences in them.  Who would I be without him?  I am amazed and humbled by the person he is... I guess at the person he has always been.

I am SO glad that God didn't read my diary.  I may not deserve him, but I like having the brother I got.