Trying to save myself? To spare the other person's feelings? Or I am just afraid of confrontations? Not quite sure.
But here's what happened.
Chris has been my really best friend since i've been here. We've pretty much done everything together, hung out all the time and talked about everything. No boundaries. She's Korean and we met when she was still and English teacher.
Then she became part of the staff. For the first couple of months things stayed the same and we still had a lot of fun together.
But then stress and pressure from work started to grow on her and she totally changed. What I know is that it seemed like she wasn't happy at all and she became really negative.
So I tried talking to her about it but it wasn't easy. You never want to hurt close friends. And she kept saying that she hasn't changed. So I slowly pulled away.
When I came back to Montreal from my grandma's funerals, she was really helpful but a lot of shit happened at work and I kept hearing stories about her doing crappy stuff to other people.
What do you do when a close friend pisses another friend off? Even if it has nothing to do with you, you ARE affected by it. Just like the way some people treated my grandma like shit made my sister, brother and I totally mad.
But then I got here and she was at the airport in the middle of the night. And she was crying. I knew that I meant a lot to her, and she really meant a lot to me too! So I thought maybe things would change. Maybe I had been paranoied about her becoming someone else.
But then I was standing in front of my apartment at 5am, exhausted from jetlag and the long trip, and she was ramblong with all those stories from work and about Twyla and teachers... She kept doing that for the next couple of days so again, I pulled away.
My smiles were cold. I didn't always greet her. My eyes were avoiding hers. I was avoiding her.
Why?
Probably because I was really uncomfortable. Of course. My best friend was turning into that person I didn't have anything in common anymore, no more fun either, that person who kept complaining about work, bitching about other staff, telling me word for word conversations she had had earlier in the day.
I realized that I wasn't feeling good after we'd hang up the phone or leave each other. She was so damn negative that it was affecting me. I was listening to her stories thinking "ok drop it. i want to go now" while nodding along.
I hated myself for feeling that way about someone I truly loved and cared about. I felt really guilty and thought I was doing womething wrong.
On the other hand I had other people around telling me how she's changed, how she had pissed them off, how she even made a friend cry. My head was messed up.
So tonight she said she wanted to talk to Twyla. I dunno why but eveyone ended up meeting at my place and it was actually funny because we spent about an hour and a half just talking about meaningless stuff because none of us wanted to get to the akward part.
But somehow we got there. And somehow she immediately picked on me.
I was speechless, my mind was racing but I didn't know how the words would come out. I just really blank out when people confront me. Fortunately what I said made a lot of sense and Twyla took control of the conversation for the most part.
While a lot of people have issues with Chris because of the way she handles work situations, I personally was just struggling with the fact that i'm losing a close friend because she's turning into that fake and negative person I don't feel comfortable being around anymore.
The paradox of course being that Christine has a wonderful heart, she's funny and spontaneous and a delight to be with - but it's all covered with a new facade she has to put up for work. And now it's affecting her as a person.
I don't know. That's what I was able to conclude.
Ironically while Twyla told her very hurtful stuff (but in a very nice way), Christine thanked her for her honesty and she seemed alrite.
But then she turned to me and her eyes were like two giant thunderstorms. She said she'd never expect that from me, that I really hurt her. She said I had been really cold and it truly hurt her.
I tried to explain to it's just how I deal with things. It's not an excuse, sure, but that's who I am. And yes, she's important to me. I've tried talking to her, but I guess I didn't have the serious talk. I tried avoiding her because I knew she was in denial and I didn't want to deal with that.
Yeah, I could have handled it much better, but I screwed up. And Twyla said that's just true: I tend to isolate myself when things get rough. And that's ok. Eventually i'll learn to deal with emotions but now I don't and that's who I am.
But of course you know me. I lost myself in apologies and felt horribly guilty. She was just staring at me with that look.
It reminded me of something Andreane made me realise back in high school: the more you let yourself love someone, the more capable you are of hating them.
Christine was really mad because I really hurt her. She didn't really mind Twyla or Kelly because it was obvious that they didn't care anymore - to them, she was completely changed and the connection they had before was now broken.
But as for me, it was like a betrayal.
I'm really trying to analyze all this right now and I think... well... i'm done with the guilt thing. I spent my whole life feeling guilty for no reason at all. I spent all those years letting people making me feel guilty without even rationalizing and seeing that I had done nothing wrong! Not this time.
Yes, I could have dealt with the situation in a much better way. I am truly sorry that I hurt her. Really sorry. And I still really love the Christine that I once knew. But that's how I feel now, and that's just the way it is. I ain't got to apologize for anything!
But this sucks.
