I should probably start this off by saying that I’m really not a complete social hermit. I enjoy talking to people just as much as anyone else does, probably more if you ask anyone who‘s seen me outside of school. I just have trouble with getting a conversation going and letting people in to see the real me behind the stupid shy shell that I have. I truly do enjoy having friends and being able to count on someone when I need it.
However, at the same time I’ve learned to never depend on someone entirely. It’s okay to trust people, because you’ll be miserable if you don’t. At the same time though, you have to be a little independent. It’s okay to be able to function by yourself and not depend on constant attention and reassurances like a little kid. This is something that I have, unfortunately, learned through a lot of trial and error.
Maybe this is a little bit pessimistic of me…okay, more than a little. But the experience of having someone who you always thought would love you and care about you flat out say that you mean nothing to them anymore can change you a lot. It happened to me after all.
As cliché and barf-worthy, teenage romance as this is going to sound, I let a boy with too long blond hair and big brown eyes get an emotional hold on me and I thought it was all good. Scott was his name, and yes, he was my boyfriend for six months but before that he had been one of my best friends since middle school. I’ve told him things that no one else has ever heard about me, and he will be the only person alive to ever have heard those things. In retrospect, it was probably unwise to place that much trust in him but what can you do?
Anyway, as with most teenage relationships it just fizzled out on my end so I broke it off. Of course there was all the usual moping from him for a while, but we still hung out and talked all the time. We were great friends despite everything, and when I told him I was moving away to Homedale he assured me about a hundred different times that nothing was going to change.
Yeah, because things always seem to work out just as someone says they will, right? Life is never that simple.
Now, fast forward about a year and imagine how it felt, stomach sinking as if I’d eaten a handful of lead, when I was informed by him that he no longer knew if I meant anything to him because he’d “changed a lot”. Really, dude? You’re going to pull that crap now, after all the other fights and break ups and things we’ve gone through? I’ve changed like you wouldn’t believe since I left Fruitland, but I’m not going to be a jerk and stop being your friend over it! Ugh!
In turn, this all got me to thinking that maybe I had been too insensitive during the whole breakup. Maybe it had hurt him worse than it had me somehow. I brooded over it for a ridiculous amount of time, and thinking back on it I kind of want to kick myself for doing so. I can’t imagine myself doing that now, and I’m really glad for it.
For a long time I was absolutely crushed over this revelation. As I said, it’s difficult for me to let people in and trust them entirely, especially people my own age. I felt like someone had literally stolen a piece of me. Not in the heartbroken girl sense, but in the sense that I had lost someone I could truly trust no matter what. It was as if I no longer had a port in the storm or a place to confide when my thoughts grew too cumbersome to be dealt with alone.
Then, like the epiphany of a lifetime or something, I realized that I do not need to always have someone to lean on. Sure, it’s nice to have support when times are tough and life wears me down, but I’m independent. I’m a very strong willed young woman and I’m not going to waste my time pining for the loss of him. I’m going to keep my head up and go on with life. Looking to the past only keeps me blind to the future and potentially better things that will come along.
It was the ending of a good friendship, I will admit. Perhaps someday it will be mended, and perhaps it won’t. Either way, it really helped me change and develop into the person that I am now. I suppose in a really messed up way I owe him a word of thanks. Not that he’ll ever get it, hah. It’s the thought that counts in this case, I believe.
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