They Pick Me Up When I’m Feeling Blue

I had my heart broken again on Saturday. I couldn’t have imagined that it would happen on such a peaceful, warm fall day, but it did. Have you ever had your heart broken? I’m not talking about by a man, I’m talking about something deeper, something more meaningful, something more stop-you-in-your-tracks, take your breath-away, heart-breaking. I’m talking about that friend you made all those years ago, who you thought was really your soul mate. You were her Thelma, she was your Louise. But it ended and however conscious or subconscious it was, it still hurts like hell.

It all starts out wonderfully. You meet, in college perhaps, at a party. Or in the dining hall. Or in a classroom somewhere. Who remembers exactly? She starts to talk about how she once broke that SAME arm when she was in high school and if you need her to take notes for you, she’d totally do it. So before you know it, you’re planning weekly dinners where you spend too much on margaritas and not enough on cheap Mexican. You hang out in her room, she hangs out in yours. You call all the time. She calls. Not just every day, but when she needs someone to talk her out of learning how to knit, or when there’s a new episode of Felicity on, or when she thinks she has mono and needs someone to come over and help her remember who she’s made out with in the last two weeks. And so time passes this way. She comes to spend Thanksgiving with your family because going home is too expensive, you spend New Year’s with her friends in the city because where else would you rather be?! She’s there by your side for every break up, every make up, and you’re there for her when she goes through her blue-hair phase.

You graduate, you even move to the same city, into a tiny apartment where you drink beer and sit on cinderblocks bailing water every time it rains. You stay out late, you go to the Bahamas. Then in Cancun. You don’t let anyone tell either of you that you’re too old to go on Spring Break. You don’t make fun of her when she pees into her laundry basket one drunken Tuesday night (but you do tell everyone you know). You teach her the words to Sweet Home Alabama, she teaches you how to ride the subway. She’s by your side when you ‘round the corner and see someone breaking into your car, and she’s the one who talks to the cops when you’re crying too hard to speak.

And then she meets someone. Or you move away. Or she moves away. And it ends. Just like that – as quickly as it started. It’s now that you begin to realize the distinction between equal and unequal, people who are good at keeping in touch and people who aren’t. People who live in the past and people who live in the moment. You are the former. She is the latter. You still needed her, but she doesn’t seem to need you anymore. She was the outgoing one, the one who could make friends anytime, any place. You struggle. You try to resist the urge to call to catch up, see what’s going on, but you can’t – she’s your best friend. But it’s one thing after another: she’s in Japan, at happy hour, working late, skiing, on her way to yoga. Has her life always been that exciting, you ask yourself as you turn on the TV and snuggle down at 6 on Saturday night?

You call when you’re in town, she doesn’t answer. She finally calls you, but it’s 1 AM. Hey, it’s ME! I miss you sooo much, please pick up. Call me, kay?! Finally you get her. She says she’ll come to visit, but that Saturday morning, she calls to say something’s come up. Can we do it another time? She asks. Of course, you say, you miss her so much, you don’t know what else you *can* say. You can never seem to catch up with each other until one day she moves to the Left Coast. You tell yourself, we’ll be email friends, it’s fine.

Years pass. You exchange a few emails, she sends you pictures of all the bridesmaid dresses and weddings for friends of yours from college, you tell her about graduating from grad school and your new job. It’s just fluff and you both know it. Then one October morning (or rather very late the night before), she texts. “I’m in a bar in Charleston and they’re playing Sweet Home Alabama, I miss you so much!” Charleston, you think. That’s only a couple of hours away - I could get there, I could see her. You text back. And you wait. And wait. And wait. Nothing. And your heart breaks again.