Background: 40, PNW living, grew up east coast.
Sometimes something pops into my head and it stick. Today it was an important thought – "they didn't have to do that. There aren't a limited number of friendship slots".
I am finally grieving.
I had the same beat friends – I called and thought of them as my brothers – from 11th grade till this year. A gay couple, high school sweethearts. We stayed close when I moved to the PNW in 07. We've been there're for each other as life happened.
I'm prone to depression and anxiety, sometimes to nearly emergency levels. I pull away when I'm in an episode, because I have to focus on getting though it. I last saw them right before the election.
I woke up this Jan 1 to a text, they were dumping me. They needed closure. I've been distant. I've done this before.
Their decision, of course. I didn't fight it. Even if I tried, the damage was done.
I have done this before – when I placed a kid for adoption, when I was going through abuse, when I was fighting myself to stay alive. And this last time when I had planned to get divorced but then the election happened and I had to reevaluate what my country even is.
So they're gone now. They didn't have to do this. There aren't limited friendship slots. We could have reconnected like always when I didn't feel like I was drowning.
I'm finally crying. It hurts. They knew I was planning to leave. They knew it was hard. They had their own things going on – and we live 3000 miles apart. They sold a house, settled an estate, opened a business. They were busy. I didn't want to bother them.
Maybe in 25 years I will have not known them as long as I've known them. Maybe I'll be ok, but right now my eyes are swollen and I feel sick.