I woke up in the middle of the night from a terrible dream.
It involved Twitter drama (which: no. No, Twitterama, I refuse to engage!), a former friend, and an ex-boyfriend.
I woke up extremely angry, and composing pissed off tweets, blog posts, and texts in my head.
My subconscious clearly needs to be cleaned out. I’m storing some crappy stuff down there.
I am a vivid dreamer. Like, I wake up in my bed sometimes utterly confounded that “it was all ‘just’ a dream”. It feels like another life (sometimes a really scary one). I have woken from dreams — nightmares — of losing people; I have woken from dreams of dying or being in mortal danger; I have woken from nightmares of being chased or consumed. I have woken up clinging to my husband, relieved to find him breathing — even loudly snoring — next to me in bed.
Of course last night, I woke in the middle of the storm. After I calmed down, I felt grateful that my children don’t have clown dolls or trees growing outside their bedroom window.
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The former friend in the dream is a woman I went to high school with. I haven’t spoken to her in nearly four years. She was a mutual friend of me and my friend H (who sometimes comments here as aidensmama). She (our former friend, I’ll refer to her as A) stopped returning our calls and emails some time ago; she lives and works in Pittsburgh — although I guess this may have changed.
When H finally made contact with her, and asked why she hadn’t talked to me or H in awhile, A answered, “You two have everything I want. It’s too painful.” By “everything I want” read: “children and husbands”.
That’s the last I’ve heard from her. I don’t know why she is on my mind, or why she pissed me off so much in my dream last night. (In the dream, she was asking me a lot of questions about The Ex. And I was answering them, and then she got shirty with me, and I conned to the fact that she was asking all these questions because she was *dating The Ex!* I’m not 100% sure why that last point pissed me off — although in the dream I kept referring to our conversation as “the interrogation” and I was angry at being subjected to it.)
I don’t know if she’s on Facebook. I don’t know if she’s on Twitter. Like I said, I don’t know if she is still even living in Pittsburgh.
I guess the upshot is for some reason lately I am missing her. I am hoping that she is happy, where ever she is and whatever she is doing. But I also feel that seeking her out to reconnect may cause her pain.
And I would never want to do that to her.
Have you lost friends throughout life? Was it a normal drifting apart, or was it a painful split? Do you still dream of them?
Red Pen Mama 
Sometimes the nicest thing is just a simple “thinking of you” email. You can’t help how she will respond, but it may make you feel better.
While this is true, I’ve no idea what her email address could even be. If she’s not on Facebook (I haven’t looked), I’m not sure how else to email her. I REALLY don’t want to call. And it’s not with any urgency that I want to see her/talk to her. I guess I just want to know that she’s well. Thanks!
I’ve had many, many friends drift away as a byproduct of my changing jobs and cities so often. (All before the proliferation of PCs.) Unfortunately, it was inevitable. It takes a lot to remain close with people once you don’t see them every day.
Yes, definitely, my friendships changed radically once babies came into the picture and I moved from the city into the suburbs. I remember trying to hook up with a close college friend THREE TIMES after Flora was born, and each time we ended up having to change plans at the last minute. It’s hard to be spontaneous with a baby in tow! I was disappointed each time, but after #3, I realized I had to let the friendship go, or be really frustrated. Throughout the years, I’ve really had to weigh each friendship, it’s importance to me versus the effort it took to see the person/people.
That being said, I have close friends from grade school and high school, from Erie (and now California) whom I would never give up! But, too, we’ve got past experiences, marriages, and children still uniting us. And we do make the effort — both ways.
Yes. I stopped calling a friend bc she was a TERRIBLE friend and I had had enough. I think of her often, but do not miss feeling insignificant. I am better off without her, really.
That is always tough, too, to be in a friendship that is particularly draining or challenging. If you feel worse after being with someone — which I think was really starting to happen with A, through no fault of mine or hers — it is best to say goodbye. *hugs!*
The most painful loss of friendship for me was just before I got married. I’d started working at a Starbucks in 2003 and everyone told me how much I’d dislike this one supervisor because he was “such a jerk,” and “really hard to work with.”
We got along famously after he threw me out of the drive thru window the first shift I worked with him. [SN: this needs to be a blog post for me.] One of my best friends now is his former girlfriend – she was actually in my wedding. Anyway, after we moved to Delaware, we lost touch for a bit. He called me one night out of the blue and we talked for two hours. That when on for several months until he started dating his girlfriend (now wife, or at least that’s what I heard last).
I got yet another out of the blue phone call from him in which he told me he couldn’t talk to me any more because it wasn’t fair to his future wife. This was after they bumped the wedding up almost 9 months and I apparently offended him by jokingly asking if she was pregnant.
I miss him a lot because he was one of my best friends for several years. Though, apparently that’s waning because I hadn’t thought of him in six months or so until you posted this.
Now this is interesting to me, kind of “losing” a friend because of the intervention of an SO. It’s interesting your husband didn’t say anything. makes me think he trusts you much more than your former friend’s wife trusted him. things that make you go hmmmm.
Also, and unrelated: LOOK AT THAT ADORABLE PICTURE OF THOSE TWO BABY BOYS. Dying from teh cute.
I still dream about ex-boyfriends, as in I’m about to marry one of them and I get in a panic and think, “I can’t do this! He’s the wrong guy! How do I get out of here?” I always wake up scared and disoriented and then I see the right guy asleep next to me.
In high school I had a very close girlfriend. I’ve still never another friend like her. We ended up drifting apart of several reasons and I still feel hurt when I think about the circumstances under which we separated. We send each other emails every 6 months or so to stay in touch. I am a vivid dreamer and still dream about her fairly frequently.
I think about A a lot too…and miss her. I wonder what she is doing and hope she is happy. I tried to google her and find her on FB, but to no avail. I just came across some pics of us + Dr. Sis and Jen that were taken at your wedding…SO much has happened since then. Maybe she will resurface again…we’ll see.