Can You Be Friends?

I have recently been trying to process my break-up. I replay every word, every argument, every conversation we had, every kiss, touch, etc. I keep thinking I could have done something differently. In the wake of the destruction, he wants to be friends. What does that mean? What does friendship look like when one person changes, and the other remains in love? Is there a friendship after the end of a relationship? Or is it just the consolation prize offered to soften the blow? Like the one you get when you lose at a carnival. 

This has been confusing for me in so many ways. I cannot imagine a life without my ex in it. However, how can you be friends with someone you are still in love with? Someone who shattered your heart into a million pieces. I have written out lists, imagined every scenario. I keep coming back to the past year of our relationship. How I would tell him I feel more like his friend than his lover. For him inevitably nothing would change he would still have me in his life. For me everything has changed. There is no more hope that we can fix our relationship. No more nights where I can go over and lay next to him after a bad day. That is not how friendships work. There is nothing tethering us together. 

I have watched him move on as if nothing bothers him. He is out with friends living his life while I sit home crying. We are in very different places. I am not a selfish person. I would give anyone anything I could to help them. However, this is not helping me. The ironic thing is I don't even really believe he wants a friendship. I think it is to make him feel better for breaking my heart. 

I gave it go, hung out, had an amazing night. I even almost kissed him again. I don’t kiss my friends. Well, not how I wanted to kiss him. I was strong, yet so weak. I could have crumbled at his touch, like the infrastructure of a tattered building. Thank goodness, he didn’t touch me much. That night was perfect. However, the rest of the weekend was rough. I was sad, emotional, broken. Like that little girl, looking for her puppy. Confused in the aftermath, even more than before.

The other night we were at pool and as I was leaving, he says "you look lovely today". Do you even know how long I have wanted a compliment from him? How many times in four years he told me he did not because others always did, or I complimented myself. It was like he was trying to pull me back in, yet he does not want me as a girlfriend. This made me so angry. Why did it make me so upset? I am clearly not crazy (well not institutional crazy). In that moment I realized maybe some people are not meant to be our friends. They are just people we must let go of no matter what the heart wants. Eventually, like all things the heart will mend, the foundation will be rebuilt, and I will somehow find my strength again. Grab your hard hat and work boots, something tells me this construction site may be a bit of a danger zone. 


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