Blah Blah, Sob

I'm home alone as Mum has gone away to spend the long weekend (yes, another long weekend, this time for the Queen's birthday) with her two best friends from school. Debbie and Mum are still bestest best friends, even though they maybe only see eachother once or twice a year. Karen and Mum see eachother even less often. Yet they still get together almost 30 years after leaving school. I wonder how they do it when I find it hard to feel normal around the people I was friends with in school, and I only left 5 years ago.

I watched Anywhere But Here today where, upon returning to her home town for her cousin's funeral, Anne's best friend tells her she's different, but she doesn't know how. I feel that way about Stephanie and Jim. Thinking back, I was never really close, really close, with anyone in school but Steph and Jim were the closest. Now when I'm around Steph I feel like we're only friends out of habit, or obligation, or because my Mum considers her a second daughter, and not that I've been missing her so much in the months we've been apart. Is it because we've missed all the little things that have happened since high school? Since we went to universities an hour apart, stopped phoning eachother, no longer have the ability to pass notes across the room? Nothing feels like it has dramatically changed, but something must be different. Maybe by just not being around eachother four or five days a week, by not seeing eachother before school or at lunch times, by not sitting together in class, we've lost some familiarity. I no longer feel at ease around the person I still call my best friend. I feel like she's holding things back, and I probably am too. I feel as though she's moved on, and did the moment she left town and I stayed here.

Jim on the other hand has profoundly changed since high school but I at least get the same feeling when I talk to him. He still calls me Missy or his girl and I still want to gossip and cry over boys with him. I still feel left behind, but that we continue to have a bond that makes me miss him. I miss Steph too but in the sense that I'm missing out on having a best friend, not necessarily her. This is mean, and too honest for even me to feel comfortable about feeling. I love Stephanie enormously. She's the only one who comes in to my house and helps herself to something from the fridge, or that I kiss and hug goodbye. She's picked me up and put me back together many times, but I don't feel as though I want to run to her when something is wrong. We don't talk about anything. Most of the time we don't talk at all. I made it a goal to put more emphasis into valuing the friendships I have. I haven't done it.