Feeling: torn
Listening to: Alkaline Trio - Ready to Fall
Reading/Watching: many, many things

And now I will attempt to work the kinks out of one of the most tangled portions of my life.

It should not be this difficult to understand one's relationship with one's best friend, but when I try to describe it to others, let alone explain it, it comes out as contradictions and ends in what seems like a too-easy conclusion.

Half the time, I'm praising her to the skies, talking about the fun times we have, re-telling jokes we've shared, being supportive of her problems and talking about how she's supportive of mine.

The other half of the time, I'm bitching about her temper tantrums, crying because of her, talking about how I can't take this anymore.

And every time I say it, I mean it. That's the most confusing part. Each time we have another ridiculous fight, each time she starts talking about how our friendship isn't going to work and how it hasn't been working for a long time, I am furious and defensive and then tearful, and in most cases, we have worked things out (temporarily) within twenty-four hours.

I am quite sure this completely baffles the rest of my acquaintance. My roommate Nimsay has said we have an "interesting" relationship (which is usually her word for a type of food she's trying for the first time and doesn't like very much). My mother thinks she's very sweet, but also demanding and somewhat immature. Kiki once hugged me and said in exasperation, "That girl is sucking the life out of you!" (which kind of offended me, but we'll come back to that).

I am not sure what mon coeur thinks of the situation, since I only met him through her and he can't exactly wish our friendship didn't exist, but he is wise enough to keep his opinions private when I swing from being sick of her to giggling like twin sisters with her the next day. I can guess that it confuses the hell out of him, though. Especially since last night, after yet another of my screaming matches with her, I went to see him and wound up crying on his shoulder (literally, although he was standing and I was sitting, so it was more in the region of his stomach), and he was comforting and supportive, which was exactly what I needed. This morning, after waking and showering, I called her, and he woke to the sight of me getting ready to leave to go have lunch with her.

She is the only friend that I have to fight. I quarrel and squabble with my other friends on very rare occasions, usually over stupid things, and sometimes because both of us are tired or cranky. But with her, we fight. Our voices get progressively harder and colder, and soon we're hurling accusations and dredging up past injuries and it is very, very ugly. People who witness it are usually in a state of awed confusion by the end.

Every time, she starts it (this is not vindictiveness on my part, I am just not a very combative person, and I tend to repress the things that could cause conflict, which is often part of the problem, because she'll blow up and I'll be armed with several stored-up grievances to air). Every time, we somehow wind up fighting about old, tired, exhausting problems instead of dealing with the actual events of that particular argument. Every time, she says that perhaps I'm not her friend after all and that perhaps I never was. Every time, I come back with examples of how she can be a crappy friend, as well. Every time, one of us bursts into tears. Every time, one of us hangs up the phone, and the other immediately calls back. Every time we finish talking, I am completely drained. I could have had the best day of my life before our argument, and afterward I will be tired and irritable and weepy.

It's worse than a couple who chronically breaks up and gets back together a week later. I always swore I would never waste my time on such a relationship, because in my opinion, when I care about someone, that never changes. When things are so bad that the relationship has to end, it's not something that can be fixed again. My break-ups are forever. Except with her. With her, she will say we shouldn't waste time trying to be friends anymore, and while years ago I would fight it, now I'm so sick of it that I usually agree and hang up on her, and she comes chasing after me demanding why I'm so cold, don't I even care?

I make it sound worse than it is, I think. What people hear about are our highs and lows. They know only the absolute best and the absolute worst. I am aware that she is in a very emotional situation right now, and in need of some support, but being in such a situation has always made our fights more frequent. Freshman year, we fought almost daily. When she was breaking up with Paul, fights happened at least once a week. During the entire mess with Satan, the ridiculous on-again-off-again of their "friendship," she and I quarreled on a regular basis over whether she should just give up on him and get over it, or give it one more try (I am ashamed to admit I have argued both sides of that particular argument, depending on the situation). Every time something was going fantastically wrong in her life (or at least wrong in her perception), we would begin fighting over the most insignificant things, and it would blow up into something hideous and all-encompassing.

I have begun building a sort of immunity to her. I am no longer dragged along on her vicious mood swings as often, and I refuse to let my emotions be engaged as deeply when she is at one extreme or another, because the events of last summer were so wounding that the scar I retain makes me somewhat cynical. This immunity translates to her perceiving me as cold and uncaring. It is not helped by the fact that now I am in a serious relationship, and there is someone who has claims on my attention and time that equal hers. She and mon coeur are friends, but they're not nearly as close as she and I are, and not nearly as close as he is to me, so whenever the three of us are together, there is the perpetual third-wheel feeling, either on her part or his, depending whether I'm wearing the Friend Hat or the Girlfriend Badge. It really can't be helped, and so in the end, she sees less of me, and she doesn't like it, especially now that she's not working, out of school, in the midst of intense emotional stress, and feeling very needy.

But I tend to erase her flaws when I'm actually hanging out with her. If we're arguing, I clearly remember all the things she does that drive me absolutely crazy, and the times when we've made up and she'll apologize to me actually make me uncomfortable, because it forces me to remember that there was a fight and cruel words which needed apology. I prefer to forget such things as soon as they're no longer important.

So my summary of yesterday was all complaints about her. Tears, and exasperation, and fraying tempers. Today, we had lunch, giggling over the waiter's sky-high pointy hair, and talked him into giving us the balloons they hand out for birthdays. Then we went to a toy store and bought bubbles, board games, and matching princess dress-up bags with a purple plastic flower wreath in mine and a pink sequined tiara in hers. We wore the wreath and the tiara to go see Stepford Wives, and blew bubbles out over the audience during dull parts. Conversation flowed easily, she smiled and I was glad to see her happy, because she isn't very often these days. But in my heart, I know she's not quite well. She has all the signs of real depression. She sits around and does nothing all day (Friday she apparently spent the entire day in bed), cries at the drop of a hat, and becomes furious and insecure over the tiniest things. When I dropped her back at her car, she looked at me with remorseful Bambi-eyes and said, "I was horrible to you yesterday, and today you bought me a Lite Brite."

I was disconcerted to realize that her statement could summarize our entire friendship, from both perspectives. We alternately pamper and punish each other. But I have no idea whether to try to fix it, try to make it better (which is my way), or walk away while my sanity is still intact.

I doubt any of you can give me that answer. This is more for my own internal processing, and I hate to admit it, but at this point anyone else's opinion is as useless as it is welcome. You can say all you want, but I can't promise to listen.

Sometimes I think I'm just not strong enough to do what's right, on whichever side of the fence that may fall.

Comments? 1 so far...
Not a Diaryland member? Sign the Guestbook.