“Everyone has a chapter that they don’t read out loud.”
I deeply hurt a friend. I did not mean to hurt my friend, but I wanted what I wanted and so she was hurt in the crossfire of my own selfish pain.
I’ve apologized and she says shes forgiven me, but harsh truth is that i would probably do it again more or less the same. And she probably knows that. So that intimacy, that bond we shared has been broken and is not going to be fixed. Turns out some things in life can never be fixed. There aren’t always second chances.
But I am truly sorry. Im sorry to have ruined our friendship. Because I miss her. I miss our jokes, and I miss our conversations. I miss her honesty. There are not many people who are brave enough to be so honest as she. Which is why she was honest enough to say she could no longer be my friend.
I’ve never ruined a friendship before. Friends have been lost before, quietly drifting away in the business of our individual lives. But this was a painful and abrupt end, like ripping off a Band-Aid, taking with it delicate little hairs and a layer of skin.
My actions weren’t particularly wrong or immoral, but I broke the unspoken rules of how good friends treat each other, and in doing so pricked the deep veins of her wounds that I hadn’t caused, but were there all the same. My actions caused her pain, and friends don’t cause each other pain.
My guilt is carries an extra weight to it because she was really there for me in a particularly bad moment of my life, and her being there for me was exactly how she became so vulnerable to me hurting her as I did. To love someone is to make put yourself at risk of being hurt, and hurt her I did.
So this is the chapter I am ashamed to read out load. The part of the story I tend to skip over. But even so, I know its there. And now you do too.
I’m sorry, dear friend. I wish you all the happiness and more that you’ve given me.
Team Amos
Wandering Joy 