Time of the Month
We don’t talk about it enough.
The heartbreak of losing a friend. Someone who was your very best friend.
Not because they died. Oh no, nothing as traumatic as that. However, it is probably the worst kind of heartbreak. The kind of loss where you have no clear understanding of what the actual fuck happened.
She just stopped talking to me.
There was no epic Street Fighter brawl while brandishing a folding chair. One day we were inseparable, wheezing laughing at something inappropriate, and then suddenly the ghosting rolled into weeks, which rolled into years of inexplicable silence.
A huge ache of absence that I never saw coming.
When I suffered my first heartbreak from an ex-girlfriend I surrendered what was left of my sanity to every self help book, hideously wanky positive affirmations and toxic cynicism. I found solace in Cornish pasties, cans of Red Bull for breakfast and re-runs of Murder She Wrote.
Yet when my best friend decided to cease all communication, I just… continued life-ing. Because I had no idea what the hell to do. I couldn’t eat, pray, love my way through the dull blow to my gut of missing her.
Because that'd be weird… right? And it sounded super gay!
I mention my ex-best friend at least once a month. It never feels purposeful. It’s like an activation of muscle memory grabbing hazy moments in time from my personal collection of “remember that one time when…”
The story of ‘us’ always weaves itself into conversations and rambling anecdotes to an unsuspecting audience who respectfully don’t give a shit!
Nobody cares about that one time when we threw bits of bread at strangers from a window.
Nobody cares about our strange obsession with that Savage Garden album.
And nobody cares about us winning a game of charades because we always knew what the other was thinking.
I am the only muppet who cares. Together we were a mess of gorgeous chaos and I adored it.
My parents still ask about her. Nearly 20 years later. Wondering what she is up to now. I shrug my shoulders and say the same thing.
“I have no idea… Still.”
And then my mother will say, “Such a shame. She was a lovely girl.”
I honestly don’t know what happened. One day we were bezzos dancing to Ricky Martin Shake Your Bon-Bon, and then we were strangers meeting awkwardly at mutual mates weddings.
I think that is why I can’t seem to get over it and I feel compelled to write this dramatic cringe as hell tale of unrequited love. There was never a rational conclusion to our friendship.
She just stopped talking to me.
Old school pals will often say, “what happened to you two?” I shrug my shoulders and say the same thing.
“I have no idea… Still.”
But I’m sure I’ll talk about her again next month.
