It Cannot Be, That I Am He...

It cannot be, that I am he,
on whom thy tempest fell all night.

 

~ George Herbert (The Flower, 1633)

This blog post is about women and friendship, and the disappointment of it all. 
This blog post is dedicated to LC.

I had a friend.  I thought she was a spiritual sister and we would be friends through the rest of this life's journey, till we were old and gray, and bent, and wrinkled.

 

I had a friend.  I thought she knew me, through the depths of my soul, all that I am, all that I aspire to be, all that I wish I were.

 

 

I had a friend.  She was a confidant for this life's stories, a co-conspirator for projects and whims and dreams.  She was my rock. She was my joy. 

 

 

And then a change began.

 

 

It was very subtle at first, a different nuance in her voice, the way she spoke to me, the way she looked at me, little things she said that I should've taken note of but didn't.  It grew slowly over time with less contact, fewer and fewer invitations, a slow distancing.  I puzzled over it, but I brushed it off as my imagination and continued to plod along in life, which in the summer of 2012 included filing for divorce and all the tension and stress that goes with this transition.

 

Pretty soon, The Change could not be ignored, so negative was the energy.  And also the fact that my soon-to-be ex-husband began a closer friendship with LC and her fiancé, JC.  I guess I thought this was just that strange phenomena that goes with divorce, when people choose sides, even when people don't want to and think they can remain friends with both.  The oddest thing about this was that LC had never really taken a shining to this man (my ex-husband); so I couldn't understand why she was embracing him in friendship now.  It was puzzling.

 

When The Freeze began, it encompassed not only my Ex-Friend, but people who knew both of us.  I found that individuals who would normally stop and speak and talk to me when we ran into each other in the store suddenly started avoiding me, blocking me on social sites.  They would be uncomfortable when I was the first to say "Hi" whenever we would bump into each other, and I'd stop, expecting to chat, to have normal conversation. They were shifting from one foot to the other, looking past me, looking at the ground, wanting desperately to escape.

 

I didn't understand.

 

And I did not know why my friend stopped being my friend.  There were no disagreements between us, no harsh words, no harsh actions.  Nothing.

 

It has haunted me...until now.  Someone finally had the courage to come forward and tell me.

 

The rest of this post is an open letter to LC:

 

I had listened to people tell me for the past two years, "She's jealous of you.", "She's jealous of you.", "She's jealous of you."

 

Jealous?  Jealous how?

 

Jealous of what I do?  Jealous of what I am?

 

I didn't understand, and I brushed it off.  I really had no idea what was going on in your mind, why and how you could so suddenly turn from my dearest friend to someone so filled with hatred.  If you had any idea of all the moments I spent mulling over in my mind what I could have possibly done to damage our friendship, what I could have possibly done to make you feel this way...I had no idea, but that didn't mean I stopped thinking about it.

 

And then I was told, finally, just a few weeks ago, during a chance encounter.  And I was left absolutely aghast, absolutely floored.  I would never have thought of this scenario in a million years.  And the sad, sad thing about it is that it's not true.

 

And I am left to wonder:

 

Did you just perpetuate this rumor to ruin my reputation and alienate people from me? 

 

Or did you really believe it?

 

No, LC, I have never viewed your fiancé as anything more than your partner.  I have never harbored romantic feelings for this man.  I have never approached this man in any way that could be misconstrued.  I have never been around this man when you weren't there.  He was actually inconsequential to my life, part of it only because he was part of your life.

 

JC called me on the evening of September 24th, 2012, to wish me Happy Birthday.  I had been waiting for your call all day.  I was surprised to hear his voice, because I was expecting yours.  But I thought he would wish me a perfunctory Happy Birthday and pass the phone to you.  We chatted for two or three minutes, then I said, "Can I talk to L?"  He paused, "Well, umm...well, ummm...She's asleep."

 

I thought this was odd, but it was just JC, so I didn't think anymore of it, and we hung up.  I thought, and my girls thought, that he might have made this birthday call because he felt bad that you didn't.

 

And that is all there is to it.

 

 

An epilogue:

 

Two scenarios apply here, and only you know which one is correct...

 

If you deliberately started insidious and untrue rumors about me, shame upon you.  May the cancer of your lies crawl from your chest, up your throat, to your tongue, and may you lie no more.

 

If you actually believe that I was "after your man", then I have to wonder why.  Why would you think such a thing?  And why couldn't you simply ask JC about the matter, which would have easily cleared things up-- unless he had his own ulterior motives for making that telephone call. 

 

This revelation has brought disappointment, shock, and dismay...but it also brings Closure.

 

Regards,

Amythyst