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View submission: Losing a best friend of 34 years
I had a friendship which spanned around 20 years. We shared our latter childhood and teenage years and had similar family problems growing up. We lived close by and spent many summers together playing, then hanging out, experimenting with alcohol and smoking, and then hitting the clubs and sharing our woes about being young adults. We went through breakups together. Started new relationships together. It ended on a bad note, too, though. We ended up going at different places in our mid twenties - she was back studying and I was raising a family. She was there when my relationship with my kids Dad ended but things were different. I hosted a small get together for us and a few friends (of hers) at my house (she lived with her parents still) when my lids were with their Dad and she ditched me at a pub two towns over. I ended up stranded, very drunk, and thought I lost house keys. I managed to get home via a kind taxi driver and found her at my house with her friends, crashed out on my furniture. She had taken my bag with my keys and left. I lost my shit and kicked them all out at 4am.
That was 10 years ago. I'm 40 now. Since then, we've connected via message a few times to share condolences about mutual childhood friends or family members who have died. But there's no friendship left.
I think as we age, we just don't have room in our lives for big blowups or other people's emotional issues, or behavioural issues. Especially if it ends up being directed at us. What was easy to ignore in your twenties isn't so easy in your thirties or forties.
There's nothing here!