Elegy for a friendship

Several months ago I had a hard time, neuropsychologically--I was run up into my breaking point & had started to push. I wrote a bit about causes and contributing factors, but not much at all about what was actually happening in my life right that moment.

One thing that happened in my life at that time is a fracturing of one of my most precious and treasured friendships. I don't make friends easily, especially not the kind of friends who are like family is supposed to be. I'm not the easiest person to get to know, and I know where I stand on things (and what stances are mutually incompatable in a friend), and I have complicated access needs ("do without" is territory in which no potential friend would even consider treading). So--friend friends? Are to be treasured.

When something happens with one of these rare gems of people, then, it's kind of world-shakingly bad. It's hard to recover from. Change is bad, especially unexpected unpleasant change with no redeeming value. Something that falling into my "actually trustable and safe" ctegory requires is massive predictability, so it's more shattering than when someone merely a friendly acquaintence does the exact same thing.

So. Yeah. a thing happened. Namely, someone I literally trusted with my life (and a key to my apartment, and stories that will certainly never be published here, and literally I do mean with my life) called Purkinje an ableist slur. That isn't ok. It isn't ok when I am at my best and it isn't ok when I am at the edge, dropping things off and considering racing them to the bottom. That's epically bad timing, yes, but wanting someone out of my sight and/or life for that is consistent across all my states of being.

As is consistent with my character, I wanted my friend to fuck off and not fuck back on again. Or maybe fuck back on again eventually but I was pretty devestated. I'm not convinced now that the "never fuck back on again" still stands.

I miss my friendship and I miss my friend. Our conversations, inside jokes, knowing that trust is a given, that obviously at least someone is on my side, that I am in fact making sense (or not) and that any not understanding is genuine rather than obfuscation,  our silly traditions. There's a bit empty hole in my soul where this relationship used to be, and it's a hole for the kind of dynamic that is a once-in-a-lifetime-if-you-re-very-lucky deal.

I care for this person enough to not name them here, not without permission, that isn't what I want to do at all. That seems disrespectful, somehow. I like to think that my principles, like "I will not name non publicish people on my blog without their permission and a fucking good reason" and "don't fucking use dehumanizing ableist language and expect to get away with it" are part of my...charm? and part of why our friendship was what it was. The double edged sword of that is that some principles do not yield and that might be part of why it's broken, shattered, gone.

I've thought really hard about that. I'm not sorry that I'm like that, not really--but I am sad, a little, that I'm not sorry that I'm like that? Most of the things that clash with my principles are "and nothing of value was lost" situations.

This particular friendship, though, was of immeasurable value. The illusion that even someone disabled and difficult-ass like me can have that sort of friendship, can be a real person in all the ways, can have the kind of friendship most people never experience, that was priceless. But that's the big overall thing. It's the little daily things, the components, the inside jokes and the things that make other people in public go "oh my god..." and the traditions and all of it, the things that are observable but that there's no words for. There is nothing in the universe that pays for that loss. Nothing.

If this person texted me tomorrow, I don't know if it could ever be the same again ever. But I so want a time machine to somehow make that moment have never happened. I miss everything. I miss the hard and the easy, the silly and the serious, the venting, the hugs.

I miss my friendship, & I miss my friend.

For clarity: this really had nothing whatsoever to do with the mentioned having-a-hard-time, except for happening at chronologically the same time. I was staring at the abyss before this happened. This is not "and this happened and therefore lost it" but "I was already not doing well and then bad timing also awful and I has teh sads"