An emptiness

Last June, during the cruise on the ship where I was married twenty years earlier, surrounded by my family, I bought two bottles of good French Champagne to celebrate a new start.  We opened them on my parents' balcony one beautiful, sunny afternoon as we were docked in Portland, Maine.  The brand was Taittinger.  It was a lovely celebration with people who love me.

Last fall, I sat at a round table of friends at a fundraiser, an amazing evening with great people.  We were discussing the silent auction items.  A case of wine caught my eye, especially as I looked a little closer and saw a bottle of Taittinger Champagne included.  With a final, last second bid, I could not believe my eyes when I saw I had won.  That bottle of Taittinger, sat on my wine rack for months waiting for a moment to celebrate, waiting for the job offer.

Now that the job offer has arrived and I've started the process of making concrete plans for a move, I opened that bottle yesterday afternoon.  It's a really good Champagne.  But I felt an emptiness as I sat on my oversized chair, with the cool breeze flowing in, sipping it as I looked out at the world.  It didn't feel like a celebration.

It wasn't a partner I was missing though.  That wasn't the emptiness at all.  Instead my mind walked through my friendships.  With only two exceptions, they are all friendships of this transition.  

Aside from the two exceptions, they either hadn't met me before or just saw me as a quiet mouse down the hall at work or sitting in the alto section at choir.  Sometimes I wish I had someone close (aside from my parents and sister) who had truly know the before me and got to watch the new me unfold.

I understand life enough to know that many of these friendships will fade away without the consistent in person contact I have now.  I already see that a little with the two friends that were colleagues who have moved on to other jobs.  Even with them still working downtown Birmingham, there is just not the same regular contact that builds relationships.  I've read studies that say it takes 50 hours of contact to become a casual friend, 90 hours to become a friend, and 200 hours to become a close friend.  In the year and a half, I don't know that I've even made it to close friend with any of them yet.

I think back to my middle school years.  I was part of a trio that was inseparable.  For two years, we did almost everything together.  We had put in the time to be really close friends.  And then we went off to different high schools.  We tried to keep in contact but it was hard and we grew in different directions.  Eventually we lost contact altogether.

Of the two exceptions, one is a friend in Wisconsin, a former colleague, who I text occasionally, exchange cards a few times a year, and see every few years.  She was my support when my ex-husband and I had issues the first time and went through couple's counseling.  It's nice to have the continued contact but there is no longer any real depth to the friendship because of the distance and the infrequency of contact.

The other exception is half of the couple's friend that we met shortly after moving here seven years ago.  I've written about her before.  My mind replaying past conversations and imagining future conversations with her is what kept me up last night.  From the beginning she felt like an old comfortable friendship.  Conversation flowed freely.  

There seemed to be an authenticity to our connection.  As I type this though, I recognize I myself was lacking authenticity during my marriage because of how much I had shrunk myself so don't know how to make sense of that fact with how this friendship used to feel.

Now, I just feel drained afterwards whenever we get together.  Our conversations don't flow so freely anymore.  I hesitate to be vulnerable because her responses often feel dismissive, not necessarily intentionally but from a lack of understanding and a lack of curiosity to understand.  And her recent attempts to reach out to check on me feel forced which makes me question their sincerity.

When I posted last week about getting the job, she immediately reached out suggesting we get together next week to celebrate.  I had so many mixed feelings, yet I agreed.  She hasn't proposed a day yet though, so it is uncertain whether it will actually happen.  Why do I struggle to say no?  Why do I continue to put myself in a situation that drains me?  Why can't I let go?

I feel a lot of grief in the two decades of my life that I let my ex-husband steal all my energy so that I couldn't invest in friendships.  That may be the part I truly regret - that I let myself center a man so much that I didn't build the community that I needed.  I married someone who had no friends of his own and thus leaned on me to fulfill all his social needs at the expense of my own.  

I suppose this woman, half of a couple we knew together, was the only long-term community I did find space to build during the marriage.  It wasn't enough.  I'm not even sure how healthy the connection was from the start.  But it was one small way I tried to make space for some of my needs.  And as the only friend when the marriage all fell apart, it feels like too much to lose her in addition to my marriage.  If I lose her, is there anything left of me from those two decades (the majority of my adult life so far)?