Many years ago, I gave up on a friendship because I could not separate my need to fix my friend from actually being a friend. I gave so much of myself that I didn't know what was left anymore. I stopped calling and emailing. Unfortunately, I did not have the guts to tell my friend why which was very bad and not respectful of me. That decision and its consequences have stayed with me. At the time, it was the best choice I could make with the information I had and being too young to realize that I was not the centre of the universe.

Now, I'm in the other shoes with the difference being that I was told why. We were the best of friends. Movies, Coke, and Smarties until I was too wired to sleep for days with the partner in crime lolling off to dreamland at will. Baking soda biscuits being shipped across the country. Laughter, finishing each others' thoughts, telepathy only being broken once in a blue moon, crossword puzzles on the grass (on fabulous blankets, of course), drives with the car choosing the path, and so many other great times. Then I moved. When I moved back, I had expectations of myself that things would be just like they were - Saskatoon would be exactly as I left it and it would fit the same. It didn't. Change happened. The friendship was good, but different. I wanted to be perfect and couldn't. That's always a bad place to be so I took* from anyone who would give. I was awful to those I loved most and put on an exhausting show for everyone else that I could only keep up a quarter the time if that. Depression was hard to admit because it felt like failure. When I finally did realize how far down I was, it was too late. I'd taken too much. I was the one in need of fixing as I had thought of my other friend all those years before. The same choice has been made again because one can only give so much before there's nothing left.

It has been difficult to make peace with my friend's choice, but I hope I get it now. I can't be sure and that's harder, I think. I cannot change the past and I did the best I could at the time. I am sorry that someone I care about and who cared about me enough to give too much was caused so much distress. I do wish things could have been different, but they aren't. Another great friendship has dwindled, but is certainly worthy of Valinor.

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*I don't know how to define what I took.