Daily writing prompt

What quality do you value most in a friend?

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Trying to figure out how to answer this prompt makes my stomach hurt. I hate to be the kind of person who becomes more and more jaded as you navigate through life’s ups and downs. Cynicism shouldn’t be your automatic go to, just because things didn’t go your way. I am, after all, the one who sends out the positive quotes each morning on Snapchat to my miniscule following of friends and family who’ve subscribed. So I of all people should know how to radically accept what’s been put in front of me.

It’s been pretty much ten years and so I have come to terms with it. I lost my absolute best friend in the world, to my divorce. I know this may sound melodramatic but it was one of the biggest losses I’ve experienced. She was the best kind of friend. I thought we had the most amazing relationship and I really valued her.

We had so many similarities and yet were so different. We were best friends for years. She was my person. It’s hard to describe the closeness we shared. Unfortunately, through our friendship, our spouses also became best friends. She helped me tremendously when my marriage was ending and in the year after. But around the time I met my current spouse, I felt her pulling away from me. Honestly, at the time, I was preoccupied with my new relationship, my kids, a new job and I had just bought my own home.

I figured she really was just busy when I would call or text her. But the space between us only got bigger and I never got her back. I’m honestly not sure what happened, maybe it was my fault? We didn’t have a disagreement or anything. She just stopped making herself available and so I eventually took the hint and stopped asking. If I had to speculate, I would say that her spouse wanted to be loyal to his best friend (my ex-husband) and she wanted to remain loyal to her husband.

It absolutely crushed me and is in the top three of losses I experienced when my marriage ended. First was losing full time access to my kids, I had to share custody fifty-fifty, second was losing my in-laws as all contact with them ceased as well and then lastly, losing my bestie.

I understand now that people tend to choose sides when a marriage ends. I don’t agree with it but it exists. I just never thought I’d lose the best friend I’ve ever had, because of it. It’s been ten years and I can talk about it now without getting teary. It would take me all day to tell you how many things I loved about her.

I’ve read that people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime and I thought she was a lifetime but it turned out she was not. She was a reason or a season. I question sometimes whether I had a skewed outlook on our friendship and maybe it wasn’t at all to her, what it was to me. Maybe I had things all wrong. I’ll probably never know. And I’m over it. Feels good to write about it.

So I guess to answer the prompt, the best quality in a friend is the friend who doesn’t unfriend you.