Real Heartbreak

by Annabeth Leong

There are things I'm proud to understand about romance, won by hard experience. I know now that relationships shouldn't be judged by longevity. If I eventually leave my lover, or my lover leaves me, it doesn't negate what passed between us. I no longer feel foolish about the nakedness, the moments of vulnerability. They remain beautiful in retrospect, even if they are tinged by bitterness or regret.

When I meet a potential lover, I go forward knowing I may be in for a searing experience. My heart will be marked forever by this person, no matter what, because I don't know how to do these things without caring. I will, perhaps, be beautifully changed, and maybe I will do the same to them. Maybe forty years from now, she will be putting marmalade on rye toast because I liked it and I'll be taking my coffee with extra cream and sugar because of him. Maybe we will be sitting together, or maybe we won't. And maybe six months from now, I'll be sobbing my guts out because I'm longing for a touch that won't belong to me anymore, or maybe I'll be awkwardly watching while someone else reacts to a denial that comes from me.

Those things are the price of admission to romance, and I know and accept them.

With friendship, though, I'm so much less circumspect. I take the idea of Best Friends Forever to heart. I want a friend who is a life partner. When things come to an end, I am inconsolable, sometimes for years.

***

As an elementary school kid, I remember getting assigned exercises and writing prompts that asked for me to make lists of superlatives. What was my favorite color? Favorite book? Who was my best friend?

These lists confused me. I am enthusiastic by nature, and I love easily. Lots of colors are beautiful to me, and every friend is precious. Choosing favorites was an alien concept, something I had to be taught.

At the same time, I have walls up that even I don't know how to breach, and always did. People slip through them, finding various secret passageways in ancient brickwork, but that's a magical, accidental process. As an elementary school kid, I didn't know how to have a best friend, didn't know how to feel that close to anyone. I never really had the experience until I was an adult.

***

I had a best friend once who would invite me to go with her to the grocery store, or to stand and talk with her while she folded her laundry. I could tell she felt embarrassed about it, as if she was taking advantage of me, and I didn't know how to communicate how much I loved being part of that dailiness. I felt stitched into her life, and so safe within it.

I remember that she was nice to me when we first met, and at that time in my life I reacted to her kindness by wondering what the hell she wanted from me. As it gradually dawned on me that she wanted me, my company, my friendship, that dizzying star of awareness produced a complete and helpless sort of love that has become the way I always feel for a best friend.

I can't drop the walls easily, but when they fall, they come down completely. I'm not sure people know how bare I am before them, but when I have a best friend, I am skinless.

***

Sex will ruin the friendship. I believed that, and I think it became a twisted talisman, a way of trying to ward off endings that always seem to come. I accept that romances can end, and when I am blessed with a particularly dear friendship, I am desperate to prevent it from becoming a romance. Without sex, perhaps it can last forever.

This morning, I began to wonder about that. I think it's a vestige of my conservative upbringing to believe that sex destroys connections, or dooms them. Certainly, the times I've lost close friends have ripped me apart so completely that I can't believe things would have been any worse or better if we'd had sex.

That's not to say that I always want to sleep with my friends. But there have been times I wanted to, and I did not out of fear of losing the friend. The irony is that none of those friends are close to me anymore, none of the ones I wanted that way.

***

I want a best friend for life, a friend with whom I outlast marriages and weather changes of all kinds, a friend I can establish unbreakable rituals with. I fantasize about making tea for this friend in forty years, just the way we did last week. At some point, I realized that other girls fantasize about weddings.

I worried that my desire for a best friend was some sort of sublimation of my feelings for women. I think it sometimes has been. But I've also had male best friends, so that's not the only explanation.

***

There are friends I'm thinking of, losses it seemed I could not survive. But it feels like a final betrayal to talk specifically about them now. There is one in particular—I know she wouldn't like to be written about, so I can't do that to her, not even now. I feel like she would be entirely lost to me if I put her on the page, and I need to hang onto that last little shred of what we used to have.

But I'll say this. I can lose a romance. I believe in clarity and clean breaks and the knowledge that I'll obviously survive once I get through a couple of weeks of sadness. I believe that it's a favor I can do for a person to really know that to my bones. When I told my ex-husband I wanted a divorce, I did it just like that. Calm, decisive, with no room for hope or further torture. Then I walked away and never looked back. I missed my spice rack, and I missed our home, but I knew the romance was finished and I never let myself doubt it.

A friend, though… I suddenly become a font of impossible hopes. Maybe it's only an accident that they haven't called in six months. I lie to myself. I lie to people around me, telling stories about things I did with my "best friend" eight months ago, then nine months ago, trying to act nonchalant, as if those adventures happened just last week. I call long past the point I should stop calling. I cry when I mention their name. I cry when I hear songs on the radio that remind me of them. I wouldn't understand heartbreak if not for those experiences with friends.

***

I don't have a neat ending for this. My heart is still broken. But what I figured out while I was writing this is that I don't want to feel embarrassed of the past confidences. It's an amazing, addictive feeling to feel loved for who I am, and to love another with my whole heart. When I lose a friend I've loved that way, and who I thought loved me that way in return, it doesn't have to mean that the love was always false, just as I don't think it does for a romance.

I am terribly embarrassed in retrospect by the revelations that can come at the end of a friendship, ashamed to think of myself so open and trusting when things were going wrong around me and I wasn't even aware of them. But I don't want to be. I'd like to be as brave as I can be with romance. I would like to open my heart again in the future, knowing full well that if I wind up broken again, it will be because it was all worth it.



(I apologize for the lateness of this post. I didn't have the heart to write it any earlier. I've lost a few friends recently that I'm still torn up about. They were all that came to mind when I thought about the topic. It took me a while to work around to a more general treatment that didn't feel distanced and dishonest.)

We Don’t Lose Friends…

…we just learn who the real ones are.

I’d like to start by saying hello and thank you to the Grippers for giving me the opportunity to join their ranks. My official bio is in place, but there are some details it doesn’t cover.

I’m joining you here all the way from sunny Australia. Brisbane, to be precise. Capital city of Queensland, or as those born here call it, QUEEEEEEENZLAAAAAAND! I love this city, and this state, but I was not born here. Which brings me around to the current topic: Losing Friends.

For as I mentioned, though Brisbane is now my home, I was born two states away and have gradually migrated north. For those unfamiliar with Australia’s makeup, our states are mother-humping huge. Our smallest mainland state is almost the same size as the entire UK. My current home is approximately 1,700km (over 1,000 miles) from where I was born. I know what it means to leave behind all you knew.

Now, I’m no army brat. And I probably only moved about a dozen times in my life. More than Princess Di, less than Madonna, I hope.

Or y’know…something.

But as anyone who’s moved a bunch of times will know, it becomes difficult to maintain friendships. You scar up, your skin thickens. You become inured to saying goodbye, and it no longer hurts so much. Without that hurt, there’s not so much drive to maintain contact.

I’ve lost a lot of friends over my 45 years of existence. It's been forced upon me by interstate moves in childhood, or even by just moving a few suburbs away on occasion. Many tears were shed in childhood over such matters.

But the worst part is that in recent years it’s been carelessness. Friendships which have fallen down the back of the couch, or haven’t been put back where I picked them up from. Ones I left in my pockets when I put my jeans through the wash.

There was no great soul-breaking cataclysm. No lying or cheating or stealing (mostly). They were simply absences that gradually made themselves known. It made a lie of the old saying "nothing ends well, otherwise it wouldn't end". These friendships just stopped breathing. They whimpered into non-existence, when I'd kinda rather they slapped my face and slammed my door. 

So these days I try to maintain focus on the friends I do have. Most of my friends live in that magic picture box on my desk. Some of them are friends from the past, from other places I've lived. Some were mere acquaintances at school who've become close friends through re-connection. But the friendship is no less intense simply from the absence of a physical component. These are the friends who are closer than family.

Stop Me If You're Heard This One

by Giselle Renarde

I wrote the post you're about to read in 2008.  Hard to believe it's been seven years since I've spoken to the man who was once my best and closest friend. Monty was like... when I think about what it must be like to have a good relationship with your dad, that was us. We talked on the phone every day, often multiple times a day. He lived down the street from me (still does), so we hung out a lot, shared a lot of meals. It was so comfortable and casual.

And then this happened:

My friend Monty is old and set in his ways, but that’s no excuse.

For many years now, my friend Monty has been my comrade and confidante, but ever since I started seeing Sweet, his usefulness in those roles has been on the decline. The more I’ve spoken to him about my life with Sweet, the more blatantly homophobic and transphobic Monty has become.

I invite people to share dissenting views on LGTBQ topics. Once those opinions are out in the open, we can discuss them. We can clear the air. We can talk about how hatred of what’s different, of what’s unknown, is always rooted in fear. We can shine light. We can make it not about "those people," but about this person. It’s about me—I’m queer; it’s about my lovely partner—she’s trans; it’s about our relationship.

I hung up on Monty two days ago. It made me feel like a moody teenager, but I couldn’t take his ignorance anymore.

Let me tell you about the kind of conversations we’ve been having lately…

Monty (scoffing): How’s Sweet?

Me: Oh, she’s great. I had lunch with her today.

Monty: You had lunch with HIM…

Me: No…I had lunch with HER. She identifies as female, so it’s HER.

Monty: No, it’s HIM. This guy’s got a dick, doesn’t he?

Me (trying to keep my irritation in check): How can you base gender on something as arbitrary as genitalia? You’ve never even met Sweet. What makes you think you’re in a better position to select a gender identity for her than she is? That’s a very personal thing. It has nothing to do with you.

It’s been stuff like that in every conversation: Monty challenging my views on gender and transgender issues, me sharing a lot about my life and relationship in hopes he’ll start to understand. But, you know what? It isn’t working. My tension level has been on the rise. During each new conversation I’m finding myself thinking, “I can’t listen to much more of this.”

Two days ago, Monty made another inflammatory remark about Sweet. He said she doesn't exist; no, "she's" just the product of a warped mind.

Monty was consistently misgendering and putting down a person I care for, a person I love, my partner, and I just wasn’t having it anymore. I'd given him so many opportunities to shed the ignorance and gain an understanding of trans life. Enough is enough.

I finally had to say to him, “You know, when you say cruel things about Sweet, you’re hurting ME. You’re supposed to be my friend, and here you’re deliberately upsetting me by insulting my partner. If you’re going to keep on offending me like this, I’m going to have to hang up.”

You know what he said? “Well, I guess you’d better hang up, then.”

So I did.

I realize how High School all this sounds, dumping the best friend because he isn’t keen on my girl. It parallels that whole mom-doesn’t-like-my-boyfriend-so-I’ll-slam-my-bedroom-door-and-crank-up-the-radio stereotype of the teenage girl. But I made it very clear: saying hateful and transphobic things about someone I care for is hurtful to ME.

And my mom would agree that anyone who hurts you on purpose is not a real friend.

So fuck him.

Too Fast To Live

By Lisabet Sarai

She was a preacher’s daughter. Maybe that explains her wildness, that bright, crazy spark in her that drew me like a moth to a flame. On the other hand, it’s not as though her dad was a Bible-thumping fundamentalist. He led a progressive Congregational church in a liberal New England suburban community. Her parents trusted her, too—they gave her a good deal more freedom than mine gave me. Perhaps that was the core problem—too much energy, with too few rules.

History abounds with theories.

I loved Rebecca from the moment I met her, which I believe was in tenth grade when her family moved to town. She stood out in a crowd, taller than many of the boys in our class, big-boned but curvy, with a shimmering mane of platinum hair that reached to her waist. Although she wasn’t conventionally pretty—her face was too long, her mouth too big—you couldn’t take your eyes off her. Or, at least I couldn’t.

Like me, Rebecca belonged to the “intellectual” clique, the ones who were smart but not necessarily popular or stylish. With her scarves and her hats, she created a style of her own. She was an artist, a poet, a gourmet cook. I admired her accomplishments as much as I appreciated her physical attributes. Somehow everything seemed to come easily for her. Her breezy smile suggested that she never worried about grades the way I did, that she never agonized about whether the boys liked her (they did) or about where she’d go to college.

We worked together on the high school yearbook and the school literary review. We played together, to the extent my over-protective mother allowed. After the junior prom, a dozen of us converged on her house. Still in our gowns and tuxes, we sprawled on the carpet in front of her fireplace while she fed us miniature cherry tarts and sparkling cider. I remember feeling drunk, though I’m quite sure no alcohol was involved. I think it was lust, lust for my date, and thought I wouldn’t have recognized it then, lust for her.

The yearbook includes a candid photo of us taken in the shower: Rebecca, me, my brother Larry (younger than me by two years) and a male friend. We’re not naked, though you wouldn’t know that from the picture. She’s shampooing Larry’s hair, obviously laughing out loud. I’m behind her, wearing a manic grin. The story behind that photo isn’t nearly as outrageous as you might imagine. It was a hot summer night. To cool off, we’d been running through the lawn sprinkler in my backyard, in our bathing suits. The grass had been mowed that day, and bits of it were plastered all over our skin. A shower was the only option.

Still.

Where was my mother that night? I can’t imagine she would have sanctioned our crazy shenanigans. My first lover took the photo. Given that he was six years older than me, perhaps Mom thought he was adequate supervision.

Hah. Paul wasn’t any more mature than us high school kids.

I don’t think I was a virgin then, though it’s a bit difficult now to sort out the time line. I wonder about Rebecca. She sometimes roamed around with a rougher crowd than our group of passionate nerds. For some reason, despite our closeness, I never asked.

In those days, teenagers didn’t talk about sex. Not in my crowd.

After graduation, we all scattered to our various academic destinations. As I recall, Rebecca went to Colby. Meanwhile, struggling with anorexia, I dropped out of college after six weeks.

I was in the hospital, living a kind of dazed half-life, when I heard the news about Rebecca. Home for Thanksgiving break, she’d met a bloody end in a car accident, on one of the back roads at the edge of town. I remembered driving those roads, the summer before, with her perched in the open window, hanging out into thin air, yelling into the wind.

At least that’s the picture I have now. Maybe it’s just my imagination. Anorexia really messed up my memory.

They let me out of the hospital to attend the memorial service, which was held in the stately gray stone edifice where her father presided. All my high school friends were there, a tragic holiday reunion. Anorexia numbs your emotions, except as far as food is concerned. I recall a dull ache of sadness, not the sharp pangs of grief I should have felt at the loss of a close friend. Perhaps in some way my pathological calm was a blessing.

What I didn’t feel was shock. Intellectually I knew Rebecca was much too young to die, but she’d been streaking through life so fast that I wasn’t surprised she’d burned herself out.

I’d always thought of her as a person who really understood how to enjoy life. When I went back to read the last poem of hers that I’ve kept, I saw that I might have been wrong. The title is “Desperation”. It’s full of dark imagery, much of it linked to the church.

She never showed me that darkness. I’m not sure I could have helped her, anyway. I was just blind, innocent, and in love.

Rebecca has been gone almost forty five years now. Still, she shows up every now and again in my stories. I’ve written a couple of heroines with her hair and others with her Amazonian build. More fundamentally, although she and I never had any sort of physical relationship, I recognize now that my enchantment with her contained a powerful sexual element. In a sense, every time I write a Sapphic tale, I’m drawing on my feelings for Rebecca.

What sort of person would she have been, if she’d lived? Would she and I still be friends? (I’m still connected with a handful of my high school mates, across the years and the miles.) Most tantalizing of all, would we have ever consummated the sort of relationship I craved but didn’t understand?

Probably not. She was, after all, a minister’s daughter.

But you never know.