Accountability/Smountability

I can really get on my high horse when it comes to my friendships. I consider myself a good friend, and pride myself on always being available for a friend in need. I try to be the friend that I would want someone to be to me. That's why it pains me to say that there have been some friendships where I really, really dropped the ball. My friendship with Bri is one of these friendships, and I dropped the ball so badly that the part of me that HATES taking accountability wants to leave the ball where it is and run. However, my dedication to therapy will not allow this to stand, so I have to apologize for my badfriendness, even if the friendship does not regenerate. 

Today, I was on Facebook looking at my friend Wanda's page and saw that she is friends with Bri. That little icon was in the corner of Bri's picture, indicating that we are not friends on the site. This made me sad. When we were freshmen in college, we were inseparable. When you saw her, you saw me. Now we don't talk and we don't even have a surface, social media friendship. Unfortunately, this is all my fault. 

I have been thinking of Bri a lot lately because she is still really good friends with one of our mutual friends. Mutual keeps me posted on the things going on in Bri's life, which I appreciate. She is doing so well, and I am so proud of her. But I can not say that it does not sting that the things that she tells me I do not know firsthand. Years ago, when I should have originally addressed this, I had to come to terms with the fact that I had been a bad friend to Bri which sucks, because I truly love her, even today. I put other friendships before ours, and I recently told Mutual I was finally ready to address that with Bri.

"Well, apologizing for what you said about Rosie would be a good start," Mutual said. I was confused. I hadn't thought about Rosie in years! 

"Rosie? What?" I asked.

"You remember when you said Rosie BLLLLLLLEEEEEEPPPPP?"

Hearing those cruel words I said about Rosie 20 years ago literally made my eyes cross. I nearly threw the phone across the room! Have you ever had a moment so bad, I mean BAD, that your body and mind go into some weird protection mode and acts like it never happened? That's how I feel about the THE INCIDENT with Rosie. Well, it really wasn't an incident. I said some inexcusable, unprovoked, jealousy -fueled f*&ked up s/+t about Rosie that was so horrible that there was no walking it back. Once I said it, out friendship was toast, and she was one of Bri's best friends. Oddly enough, they are not friends anymore, but she is still mad at me about it. That's how bad it was. 

It never dawned on me that the fall of me and Bri's friendship had anything to do with Rosie. I was prepared to own how bad of a friend I was to Bri, not address the Rosie stuff. Addressing Rosie would make me have to address some very dark parts of my character that I would like to believe I've outgrown. Rosie represents a me I don't want to think about and like to play like never existed. 

When I talk about being on a high horse, I'm not joking. I've called people who don't want to have hard conversations cowards, and here I am being as cowardly as they come. I shall keep you posted on any progress with this. Whether I want to or not, a conversation has to be had.