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3.08.2010

Unresolved guilt...

     Have you ever felt a feeling of unresolved guilt?  A kind of guilt that you can't let go of?  A guilt that you can ask forgiveness for, but you feel as though you can't forgive yourself?  Unfortunately, I have come to know this feeling over the past month or two.
     It all starts with a friend.  A friend I love and adore.  A friend I have known since our sweet and innocent days.  A friend that I was best friends with from Kindergarten - 12th Grade. We were so close.  We knew each other inside and out.  We could finish each other's sentences.  We knew each other's families and felt as though we were family.  I'm not sure how it happened, but that closeness we once shared, that we talked about sharing forever, somehow faded over time.  After we graduated from high school and went our separate ways, the closeness we thought we would never lose, was in fact, lost.  Don't get me wrong, whenever we would see each other or talk to each other, it was like we'd never been apart.  But the time we spent together or talked was very rare.  People tell me that's what happens as you get older.  You go your way, they go their way, you lose contact with each other and life goes on.  But I wonder, does it have to be this way?  We were best friends, not just acquaintances.
     This friend of mine lost her father in 2008.  I didn't find out until 2009.  There were many variables as to why I didn't find out.  Apparently she didn't have my cell number.  She tried calling my parent's, but they were out of town.  Another friend of ours was asked to notify everyone; well she didn't have my number either.  This friend ended up remembering much later, she could contact me via Myspace, so she did.  That's when I found out.  Much later.  I wasn't there for my friend.  I wasn't there for my best friend of 13 years in a serious time of need.  I didn't even make it to the funeral, because I didn't even know about it.
     Well, this friend just got married this past weekend.  Luckily we have since made contact, and I was able to share in this joyous day.  Thinking about the upcoming wedding, I began thinking about who wouldn't be there, her father.  This is when I began thinking about how I wasn't there for her.  I am so glad I was able to be there at the start of this next chapter in her life.  I just can't seem to get over the fact that I wasn't there for her in her darkest hour.  I feel so horrible.  I don't know when I can forgive myself.  I have this feeling of unresolved guilt that I don't know if I will ever let go of.
     I am now going to make it a point to keep in touch.  There is no reason to give up on a friendship.  Well, I guess is the friend is toxic and causing you harm, but in most cases, there is no reason.  This friend was so close; she was not toxic at all.  Why did I give up?  There is not a good enough reason.  I should've been there for her - through it all.  Jesus wouldn't give up on a friendship, why do we?  Why did I?   

1 comment:

Amie Wills said...

I've had the same experience and it is awfull! But, I don't know if we give up on these kinds of friends as much as they lose priority. It's not like you woke up one day and said "I'm not going to be friends with her any more"... to me, that would be giving up. The real (and more subtle) way that it actually happens kind of sneaks up on us, "I'll call her tomorrow" and tomorrow turns into next week which turns into next month.

We were talking about guilt in SS a few weeks ago, and someone brought up false guilt - when you know you shouldn't feel that way but you do anyway. You absolutely have false guilt. I know you, and I know that you would have been there for your friend if you had known what she was going through.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to get over that guilt either. It's stupid to feel bad for something that happened accidentally (for lack of a better word), but it doesn't make the guilt any less.