i had a friend that i stood by through everything. had being the operative word. somehow in the last week i said something or did something that completely set her off and she has decided i don't talk "to" her but "at" her and that we don't need to talk at all. this all came from me stating my opinions on one subject that apparently was very sensitive, and from asking her to not read things into what i say that aren't actually stated. i have always said, i say what i mean and mean what i say. when i asked her why she does this, she jumped all over me. when i asked her to please quit, she jumped harder and then determined i had a "burr up my butt" and that we no longer needed to speak. considering how often she has verbally beaten me up in the past, how often she has laid into me for things that i did not do or say, how often she has been angry at me for whatever reason and i withstood the storm, i should just let this one go. the friendship had hit the point that apparently the last few years meant nothing and she knew me not at all, and had finally come to the point that it was strained at best. this was, perhaps, her way of bailing out on it. i don't know. all i know is, i should be able to just let it go. and i can't.

i am angry, and i am hurt. and i am appalled. it takes two to tango, as they say, but this is, somehow, all MY fault. and it bothers me that it has gotten so ridiculous that she can barely be polite in any required communication. and it bothers me that she reads into what i write or say things that are not there. and its my fault she does this? how is this my fault? how is it my fault that she went absolutely off on me when i asked her to please try NOT to do this because it bothers me that she does do it, frequently? i don't think it was an unreasonable request. and i don't think it was unreasonable for me to ask her to discontinue doing something that bothers me. to me it is unreasonable to be screamed and yelled at for having an opinion that differs from another person. it is unreasonable to be shut out for making a request that someone discontinue something that bothers you just because they apologized for it. the apology is great and accepted, but there is nothing wrong with asking someone to not do it in the future...so i thought.

apparently i was wrong.

and the kicker? it will remain unresolved. she's not talking to me. and even if she did, even if we did manage to work this one out, it wouldn't be the same. it could never be the same. i would forever be on guard against the next attack, the next time i said something that was read wrong, the next time she decided i had a problem and let me have it for it, the next disagreement that led to some stupid, insane blow up fight that somehow became all my fault. i can't trust that. what was once a wonderful friendship is now completely irrevocably destroyed for me. it's sad, it hurts, and i am angry that its ALL my fault.

i'll eventually work through this. accept that its gone. that somehow i fucked up. i won't ever understand it. but one day i won't be so angry and hurt about it, and she will be just one more person that touched my life in both wonderful and not so wonderful ways and, in part, made me who i am today as a person. i just wish the wonderful part had lasted longer. and that misunderstanding wasn't so basic to the net.