broken heart

Today I unfriended one of my best friends from Facebook. 
The removal of her from facebook is more of a metaphor for the removal of her from my life and my thoughts.

Briggs, Chez and I were inseparable since we were 15. 
I’ve been friends with Chez since we were 12, when we got to high school we were put in the same class as Briggs and the 3 of us just clicked. We’d do everything together, and despite spending 7 hours at school together everyday we’d all rush home and spend the rest of the day on the phone to eachother. 

We had all our firsts together, getting drunk, smoking weed, first kisses, losing our virginity. The last 2 years of high school were 2 of the best years of my life, and it was all because of them 

After school things changed a bit. Chez and Briggs went to university and I went off to see the world. That was when I ended up working in America and England, but when I came back to South Africa things were still the same, we were still friends who go drunk, and went shopping and shared secrets. 

It was only about 6 months after I got back from my travels that my parents decided they wanted to move to England and we packed up our lives and I moved away.

After finishing her degrees, Briggs decided to do a MBA. She’s been doing so well in her course that the university has sent her on several all expenses paid trips around the world to attend and represent them at various conferences. She blogs for the Times and is poised to take over the world. 

Years and years passed, I kept in touch with my South African friends through email, facebook, texts and the occasional phone call. 
I finally went back in 2011. It was wonderful seeing them again. 

In October last year, I flew back again, this time for my 10 year high school reunion. 
I was there for 2 weeks and it was great to relax, have the sun on my skin and 14 days with nothing to do. 
I stayed with Chez the whole time I was there, and despite not having spent any time together in nearly 8 years it was like nothing had changed, but in a good way. We had both changed, grown up and matured, but we still had that foundation of a friendship that we’d built up all those years ago. The chit chat flowed easily, like it should with old friends. 

I hardly saw Briggs while I was there, only for a few hours for a group dinner. She even skipped the reunion. 
It was because of this that I decided I wanted to see her before I left and invited her over to Chez’s flat a few days before I was due to fly back to Bristol. She’d been watching the rugby and drinking all afternoon and came over completely drunk.
She sat there for several hours and in all her drunken honesty completely trampled my heart.

She said things like
My school friends are beneath me and I have no time for them.
Occasionally liking someone’s facebook status doesn’t mean you’re still friends.
I’ve been a people pleaser my whole life and now it’s time to stop and do what’s right for me, so I have to be a selfish cunt and I don’t care about anyone’s feelings.

There was so much more, I can’t even remember now, but it lasted a long time. 
She even told Chez that she has to compromise herself to still be her friend. I don’t know how Chez didn’t push her off the balcony right then. I put up with Briggs insulting me for over an hour, then there was crying, then Chez asked her to leave. 
It was a complete mess.
It also completely ruined the remainder of my holiday, the things she had said were heavy on my mind and I couldn’t get to sleep at night for going over and over it. 

I thought it would all settle down.

But 3 months on and nothing has improved.
I honestly feel like I’m going through a break up.
I can’t get those nasty words out of my head, I’m moping around the house feeling sorry for myself, I’m thinking about it in bed, in the bath, any time I have 5 minutes where I’m trying to relax. I’m angry about it. 

I think I’ve taken this so badly because I totally wasn’t expecting it.
She doesn’t want to be my friend anymore and I don’t feel like I’ve done anything wrong.
I’ve spent the last 10 years maintaining long distant friendships. After working at camp for 4 years I have the most amazing friends in America, so on top of keeping in touch with my school friends in South Africa, I also I had to keep up with my friends in America. Until roller derby I had very few friends in Bristol and considered all my transatlantic friends to be very important. 
To me, this was a normal way of life. 
Sending emails and comments on facebook is about all I can offer from all the way over here.
I think my friends acknowledge that.
But, apparently that wasn’t good enough for Briggs. 

I hang onto old friendships because they’re exactly that, they’re old. 
We’ve been through so much together, and no one can ever take that away from us. 
It doesn’t matter how much we grow and mature and change, we’ll always have those memories. 
Reminiscing is probably my favourite hobby. 
It should be perfectly natural when you see old friends, and in my case, it always is. 
With the exception of Briggs of course.
And maybe I’m having a hard time swallowing this pill because my brain is going "What do you mean you don’t want to be friends anymore? but, but, but, we have all these amazing memories, and we used to be so close. How can you just throw all of that away?!"
But Briggs is on a path of self discovery and doesn’t want anything to do with her past, and apparently I shouldn’t take it personally. 

She’s completely broken my heart.
Losing a friend can be far worse than losing a lover.

Ben’s definitely noticed a shift in my mood since I got back from South Africa in November. I’m feeling blue and I haven’t really told him any of this, I don’t know why. 
I guess part of me feels like I’m being over dramatic about it. 
I need to grieve the loss of this friendship, but I don’t really know where to begin.

Deleting her from Facebook seemed the obvious first step.
And now? Maybe time is all I need.