Best Friends

I can remember, about three or four years ago, sitting at home and immersing myself online. I found it to be an escape because, to be quite frank, I had few friends. I had a rather new boyfriend and I had friends that I would see at school, but on the weekends I was either with Ethan, at work, or alone. I envied what the popular kids had and wanted desperately to be like them. Why didn't I fit in with them? I remember sitting in my english class during my senior year of high school, when I was at L-R for the HSSA, and I would look around and try and find a group to just click with. But I couldn't. I didn't drink on the weekends or party or do the things that they did. I didn't find the jokes funny, or the ridiculous things that would land them in trouble even remotely worth spending my time on. It was frustrating to feel so out of place in a room full of people my own age.

Eventually, though, after graduation, I became really close to two people in that room. And they become my two best friends. Neither of them really friends with each other, but each seperately became a big part of who I was. I was so excited to have these friends. I needed them. My journey for companionship was finally coming to an end; the end result was two, not just one, excellent friends.

I changed myself at times for the both of them. I cleaned before they came over, I watched what I said or how I acted, and I went out of my way and bent over backwards to truly make them happy because keeping friends was worth it to me. Pathetic? Quite possibly. But I was so, so terrified that one day, they might decide I wasn't good enough to be their friend anymore and I had to, at all costs, make sure that didn't happen.

And all the while, my husband (who was then my boyfriend and then my fiance)watched me. At times, he was angry because I devoted so much attention to perfecting myself for my friends. I would invite them on our dates, make him schedule things around my plans with them, make him listen to my complaining and whining about why things weren't going well and then demand that he have an opinion about them. He had to like them and help me be perfect for them.

He watched me cry over fights, get angry behind the scenes, compromise my own happiness and then jump through hoops to keep things stable. In the beginning of my marriage, I was clutching on to one failing friendship so hard that I cried over that slipping relationship more than I smiled over the fact I was a wife. My priorities were so. messed. up.

It's been about eight months since friendship #1 dissolved. That was a rough, rough, rough time for me. And it's been about a week since friend #2 completely blindsided me and ended my very last best friendship. To say I was hurt was an understatement. In fact, I felt like a knife had been stratigically placed in my back. But the way this friendship ended was truly a blessing in disguise.

Her husband just isn't a cool guy. He called her a bad mom, threatened to divorce her, sent childish text messages to me which instigated an argument in which I called him a child and told him to grow up. I meant those words. How dare someone tell my best friend that she wasn't a good mom? How dare he tell me that he doesn't like my husband, the man who stood by their side as they eloped and witnessed their marriage? How dare he tell me that he doesn't like me, after I held his wife's hands as she found out she was pregnant, sat with her as she told her parents and waited outside the delivery room door to hold her sweet baby boy for the first time? How dare he, only hours after I told him to grow a pair, tell his wife that he would leave her and her two year old son if she talked to me again? No, he isn't a cool guy. And she listened to him. I heard through the grapevine that not talking to me was what was best for her famly.

And I cried. I told my husband and he was in disbelief. It was so out of character for her to take an order from someone like this. I can honestly say, that although I've made plenty of mistakes in my day, I didn't do anything wrong. I was called in the middle of the night, rushed to my best friend's side and within a day, the friendship was over. A controlling, verbally abusive husband stole my best friend. And she let him.

Yesterday, I was sort of at my low. I didn't get out of my PJs and I watched 13 hours of Pretty Little Liars, only getting up to let my dog outside. I cried some and lashed out at my friend via text. Texts she didn't respond to. I cried even more because I wasn't sure where my husband was. I hadn't - and still haven't - heard his voice since 1:30 saturday morning and I was terrified. I needed her to talk to and she wasn't there. So after taking some Nyquill (because not to mention I was sick), I fell into a rather deep sleep and woke up with a new attitude.

Her husband is what my husband is not. And it's obvious that I didn't pick him out myself. No, there is no way in the world I could have caught my E on my own. He is a gift from God. I think, just as much as I was surprised by my friend's ability to say "bye!" to me in an instant, I was shocked that a husband would put his wife in that position. Why was I so shocked? Well, because mine is so good to me. I mean, I have a husband that makes other husbands look bad. Now, I might be biased in some respects, but I know that I am truly blessed and highly favored.

And then, I just had to sit back and think about what I've been doing for so many years. I've been searching for a best friend high and low. I've broke my back to keep these friendships up and I've prayed that maybe one day I can have the ones I've lost back. And the whole time, my best friend has been right by my side. He's watched me exert all my effort into other people, sometimes putting him to the side. He has grown with me... literally, we have grown up together... and he's turned into this absolutely perfect husband. We bicker like we've been married for 40 years, we laugh like we're kids and when I look into his eyes, it's like the very first time. Each and every time. I can't think of a cooler thing in this world.

Maybe they're just being nice, but people tell us all the time how perfect we are together. We may not be perfect seperately, but I have to agree. We've been called that couple. The one couple who has it all together (ha!) and just loves each other to the point that it radiates. The couple who laughs, goofs off and truly enjoys their time with each other. I've got a grin on my face just thinking about it!

I am SO BLESSED.

So I have to just put this out there:

Thank you, old friends, for showing me what a best friend is NOT.
Thank you, husbands of the world, for showing me how AMAZING mine is.
Thank you, shakey marriages, for showing me how STABLE ours is.
Thank you, deployment, for showing us how STRONG we are.

Thank you, Bug, for showing me what a best friend IS.

I love you.