What are you supposed to do?

What are you supposed to do when you lose a friend?

Do you try to hang on to the memories, and try to fix what is probably meant to be broken? Do you just let it go, and tell yourself the ride is over?

That's what I have found myself struggling with a lot lately.

My first friendship "break-up" was one of my first and closest friends. My cousin B and I were joined at the hip, after I got out of my "Terrible Twos" stage of life (lol). Everything was wonderful. She got me hooked on country music (which, by the way, is SO much better than that rap/hip hop stuff I listed to before). Each time I would stay at her house, we'd stay up super late and watch Charles In Charge reruns. Someone always there for you, and you had that guarantee of "forever" because you're family. That was, until we let boys get between us. It was awful. Literally awful. I think in the past 7 years (that's how long it's been), we've had 3 conversations that I can remember. I didn't fight it, I didn't try to fix it. I just let it go.

The next "break-up" was around the same time, so I was so devastated. At 16, all you care about are your friends. When I was 16, the two that I had, I had also lost. K and I were best friends, from 7th grade through summer before Junior year in High School. We constantly had sleepovers. She would burn CDs for me with my favorite music, since my family didn't have a computer. My family was also struggling during that time, so often times I did not bring lunch to school. (This was my own choice, to save my parents money...my parents did not tell me I could not have lunch.) She shared her lunch with me and often times shared her lunch money with me in 8th grade so I wasn't hungry. We both played MASH and "The Lemon Game" whenever we were around each other. We babysat together for our church's Married Life group twice a month. She taught me how to shave my legs in 7th grade. A stupid fight, on the internet, over me not feeling like I got the attention I wanted/felt that I deserved at my Sweet 16 and too much attention being paid to R (more on that later), was what drove us apart. We're casual friends on Facebook now, and that's about it. We've texted each other twice since I decided to let go of my grudge, but it permanently ruined any chance at friendship that I had left. I gave up, because I couldn't handle rejection and knew that's what I'd feel if I even tried to mend what was broken.

Third, was R. Friends since I was 14. Best friends at 16. Best Best Best friends at 18. Some stuff happened that caused us not to be as close for a year or two, but we'd always catch up and make sure the other was doing well. And it wasn't awkward. Suddenly, about a year and a half, or two years ago, R asked me to call. I have a feeling it was about his relationship at that time with a girl I introduced him to, A. He didn't say, but I was in a new relationship and didn't know how my new significant other would take me talking to a male friend, late at night. It was never anything inappropriate, but still didn't want to seem like I was doing anything wrong (which I wasn't), so I said that I couldn't call. When a friend needed me the most. This caused R not to want to be my friend. We haven't talked since. When I found out he was recently engaged (not to A; she is married to someone else now), I heard from a mutual friend. That's great, but it would've been awesome to hear from R directly, you know? So I sent my best wishes to him, only to find out that he deleted my number and asked our mutual friend who my phone number belonged to. R then told our mutual friend to tell me thank you. I didn't even get to hear it from him directly. I stopped trying, because I know how stubborn R can be, and maybe eventually he will come around. I wish him a happy birthday every year on December 1. I do wonder how it will be once he is married. I wish I could meet his future wife and tell him what an awesome catch she got. But that won't happen. I constantly pray that R will find it in his heart to forgive my mistakes, and that's all I can do. I can't force him to want to mend what is broken, unless that's also what he wants. At least that's what I've learned.

Most recently was A2 (the 2 is obviously there to let you know that this is not the previously-mentioned "A" in the paragraph above). It's been about a year since our "break-up". There were so many things that contributed to this, and honestly I think everyone and their dogs saw it coming. There were good things, and bad things that happened during our friendship. It ranged anywhere from "Mandy, you deserve so much more respect" to "Mandy, you have no respect for yourself", and from "I'm so proud of you" to "You are such an awful friend". I miss when she graciously allowed me to stay with her following a break-up (which honestly, she contributed to but it was good for me in the long run), and we would wait until Midnight each night to read our horoscopes. She was so kind to let my bratty cat stay too, even though he was so mean to her blind cat. We both worked together and had Fridays off so one Friday we went to Chuck E. Cheese and spent the day there, as 21 year olds. Haha. Sometimes I wonder where I went wrong. What I did to be such a terrible person to lose this friendship. I was never anything but supportive of her. I was her shoulder to cry on, the one she would vent to. I even ventured with her to a random person's house that we met on the internet (we can save that for another time, but I promise we were safe). It all turned sour when we both began a weight loss journey. She was working really hard to lose weight, and was doing an amazing job. When we were friends, she'd already lost nearly 60 pounds and looked awesome. I didn't have to work as hard as her; I just changed how I ate and 40 pounds fell off in 4 months. I was accused of lying, and I think she became jealous and that was the last straw for her. After that, I tried to fix what was potentially mendable, but matters were just made worse. I was blamed for not being there when she was "in a coma", which I'd never even heard about this happening (neither did our mutual friend, M...yet M and A2 are still friends. Hmmm...). I was blamed for always turning the conversation away from her and onto me. I was blamed for changing who I was when I got into a new relationship, which she did not approve of. She didn't approve because I was stupid and would only tell her the negative aspects of it instead of the million more positive aspects of it, and that was my own fault. I lost my job while we were friends, and was honest-to-goodness trying as hard as I could to find a job for 9 1/2 months. This wasn't good enough for her, yet she quit her job (and apparently all the ones after that) because she didn't like them (according to our friend M). I was constantly degraded (more than praised or even appreciated). But there was something in me that still longed for the friendship. Maybe it was that she was the only girl my age I could handle being around. Maybe it was because I knew I'd tried and failed at friendships in the past so I desperately needed to hang on to this one. I don't know. I found out from M that A2 had reached her "100 pounds lost" milestone. Even though we hadn't talked in probably 6 months, I sent her a congratulatory message. Her response was 4 pages long, full of how "the message is appreciated" but my contacting her was not appreciated after how awful I was. Maybe she really was in a coma, but I never knew about this...and I don't think it was because I was an ignorant friend, since all of our mutual friends were not aware of this "coma" either. All I know is that my best was not good enough, so I stopped trying.

These days, I have my sisters, mom, and Derick as my support. I've learned that's all I need. But sometimes you have this longing for a friend. Someone besides family. I've tried and failed so many times in the past, that I've stopped trying to make friends. I've kept my distance from new people, to prevent any sort of friendship from blossoming (and dying). I've kept to myself at my new job, and fear making any friends because of my past track record.

Are you supposed to fight for a working friendship? Do I try to mend what was broken? Do I leave it as is and move on? Do I try to hold onto the memories? Do I beg for forgiveness (even when there's nothing to be forgiven for)? It's so puzzling. Maybe there is one of those "For Dummies" books on how to be a good friend. Maybe I wasn't put on this Earth to have friends, but to be a good person and work hard and love my family and my dogs. Who knows? All I know is a part of me still feels empty. What is a girl supposed to do?