Reality Bites...But I bite harder

"You can't navigate me. I may do mean things, and I may hurt you, and I may run away without your permission, and you may hate me forever, and I know that scares the living shit outta you 'cause you know I'm the only real thing you got." ~Troy Dyer, Reality Bites (1994)


I'm going to start this blog post by saying that I miss my best friend.  Isn't that how it goes? First you act like you don't care, then you're angry, then reality sets in and you realize that you just plain miss that person and what ever heinous acts brought you to this point can be forgotten and you can go back to just being buddies again.  But can you?  


My (former?) best friend and I have (had?) been best friends for going on 22 years.  Of course during that time we have had our arguments; we're very different people she and I and have led very different lives.  Trying to navigate your own bullshit is difficult enough.  Trying to navigate someone else's is damn near impossible.  However, when you're that close to someone, it comes with the territory.  I am a part of her family and she mine.  I consider her parents and sisters my own and love that I can walk down the street and pop in for a chat in the kitchen or garage with either her mom or dad, respectively.  I don't know if she feels the same about my family anymore because I don't really know her anymore.  


I'm sure by her account, I have always been a shitty friend.  I was the one with the broken family, the compulsion to lie, the attraction to trouble and of course, the one who was in it for me.  Even my own mother once looked my best friend dead in the eye and said "You know, you can have breakfast without Meaghan.  You don't have to do everything that she does, when she does it".  I never really understood this and neither did my best friend.  We did things together because we wanted to.  Not because we were following each other's lead or as our mother's thought: I was leading the way on the path to nowhere.  As we got older, I really began to appreciate what a great friend she had been to me all those years when I was "lost".  When you're younger, you tend to take these things for granted or don't even consider them at all.  I don't know if it was a conscious decision or not, but I began to make sure that she knew exactly how special she was to me.  This was really put to the test when she moved out of town for work.  


To Be Continued...

My Best Friend and I, 1989