Adios, Amigos

Ok, so I’m thinking my photo shoot last night was a success. Roxy, of course, is MORTIFIED that her mother wants to be considered a “hottie,” but I don’t care. Now I just have to wait for THE picture to be shot into cyberspace so I can put the link on my blog profile. (For those of you who don’t remember, I use a stupid NT computer, and therefore cannot upload ANY pictures without going through several channels to do it.) Hopefully this afternoon I’ll be good to go.

And nobody better laugh.

Anyway. I tried to call a friend of mine last night, a friend who, mind you, was SUPPOSED to come over for dinner while Roxy was in Michigan. He didn’t call me to confirm our plans, which was fine at the time, since you all know about my home improvement fiasco. But since I hadn’t heard from him AT ALL since we initially made our plans, I figured I’d call him and find out what the hell was going on.

I got a fast busy.

Very strange. You see, this was the friend who I recently reconnected with whose father passed away. The one who had just moved back to Chicago from Michigan because he was getting divorced. The one who came with me and my other friends to Def Leppard and had a great time. So I was a bit confused. I decided to call another friend I hadn’t talked to in a while, but who also knew V to find out what was up. When I jokingly asked, “What, did he skip town?” C told me that yes, he had gone back to Michigan to work things out with his almost-ex-wife. Huh. Imagine that.

Now, I had no romantic interest in this guy, we were just friends, so it’s not like I was upset he was getting back with his wife. On the contrary, I think it’s probably a good thing. What I WAS a little ticked off about was the fact that for all HE knew, I was sitting in my kitchen with dinner waiting for TWO WEEKS while HE went back to Michigan. Seriously. I mean, no “goodbye?” No “Thanks for trying to cheer me up when I was down?” No “It’s been a slice, but gotta go?” Go figure. And not even a forwarding number. So I guess what it comes down to is that he obviously didn’t really give a shit about our friendship at all. Man, I HATE when that happens! OR – oh, wait! Maybe he couldn’t take being around me and knowing he could never have me!! You know, actually, I’m SURE that’s it. I mean, he knew the whole Mr. South Side thing, and was probably pretty curious. But he knew we were just friends, so when his almost-ex came back, he jumped at the chance to try to forget me. Silly me. And here I was worried he DIDN’T like me. He just liked me TOO much, is all.

Yeah, right.

This isn’t the first time something like that has happened to me though, and being the type of person that I am, it REALLY bothers me. I don’t like things that end without closure. And I tend to overanalyze and get all paranoid about what (supposedly) REALLY happened and why I got frozen out. See, when I was in high school and worked in the hospital’s kitchen, my co-workers and I had a little “clique.” Over the years, some of us kept in touch and still went out now and then. Two friends in particular I stayed pretty tight with, G and D. Roxy actually was the flower girl at D’s wedding, and she loved G and D too.

Unfortunately, there was a minor “issue” with myself and G (ok, so it wasn’t that minor, but he WASN’T her boyfriend anyway…) and although I came clean and apologized, things weren’t quite the same. This was about six or so years ago. D, on the other hand, backed me up, because there were extenuating circumstances, and she totally understood. G had some major issues that all of us were concerned about, and D knew that I was sincere in my remorse and stayed true. After all, any friendship that had lasted THIS long (15 or so years) was worth saving. So G slowly started to come around, but still held a MAJOR grudge. She treated me verrrry coolly when we wound up in the same place, and we never talked on the phone anymore, but it seemed we were making some (slow) progress. And the whole time, D and I kept our friendship intact.

Then one day, D called me to tell me that she was pregnant. With twins. I was thrilled, but also somewhat nervous. D had some health issues, which made pregnancy difficult. And when she told me about this pregnancy, she was only about a month along. Of course, I never voiced these concerns to D, I gushed and congratulated and honestly was ecstatically happy for her. We spent the rest of the conversation talking about kids and Roxy and joking about HER having TWINS. Our conversation ended the way they always did, “Well, I’d better get going. Talk to you later!”

And that was the last time I ever spoke to her. This was back in February of 2003. Initially, I had called her a couple times, left messages, and got no returned calls. No biggie, I figured, she was probably busy. I sent her an invitation to Roxy’s Communion and never got an RSVP, so I called again. Still no response. I started getting worried, thinking maybe something happened to her, so I sent her a card. Just a “Hey what’s up” kind of card, with a little note saying I was thinking of her and hoped everything was ok. Nothing. Over the summer, I ran into a mutual acquaintance, and asked her if she had heard from D at all. By this point, I was seriously worried that maybe she had miscarried or something, and was in a deep depression. But no, apparently L had been at D’s baby shower just a couple weeks ago, and everything was fine.

I honestly had NO IDEA what had happened. Every now and then I would try calling again, leave another message, but never got a response. It drives me absolutely INSANE wondering what exactly happened. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with G, but it really bothers me to just be “cut off” with no explanation at all. I mean, come on! Call me and say, “F*** you, b****, I hate you. Leave me alone. I can’t believe you (fill in the blank)!!” THEN I’ll be ok. If I know WHY you are mad, I can try to fix it, or at least try not to do it again to anyone else. If I have NO IDEA why, I’m left in this state of limbo, constantly trying to figure it out. I actually DREAM about her every now and then, it bothers me that much.

I read in our high school newsletter a couple months ago that she has twins – a boy and a girl, going on two years old now. And that made me happy, but it also broke my heart. I’d love to meet her kids. After I read that, I left her a final message, telling her I read about her, and that I hoped she was happy. And that I missed her, and didn’t understand what had happened, but was glad to see she had her family now. When I hung up, I had that stupid head-rush feeling again. You know, the one where you are just so FRUSTRATED and ANGRY, but you can’t do anything about it.

People tell me to just let it go, and I really wish I could. But like I said, I’m the type of person that needs CLOSURE. Maybe someday I’ll find out what happened. Probably not, but who knows?

Oh, and if anyone is even THINKING of comparing me to Mr. South Side because I don’t understand what happened and left her a couple messages over the years, may I remind you of a few facts first:

1. I TOLD Mr. South Side in pretty definite terms that it was OVER, D never told me ANYTHING.

2. MY messages were not the ramblings of a psychotic, they were those of a concerned friend.

3. Lost friendships suck a lot more than lost relationships.

As far as V goes, at least I can kind of grasp his whole thought process, and I guess I can understand it. In a way. It still wasn’t nice to leave without a goodbye, but I won’t take it personally. The whole D thing will mess with my mind until the day I die. And if anyone ever does this to me again, not only will I live in the Victorian house with the cats, but I will never answer the door either.