Sometimes the most important relationship is a Friendship

I can't help but think, every once in awhile (or more like every couple of days) how much easier it would be to be 24 and living at home and hating my life if I had my friends around me. Because of my travel and my "seize life" attitude, my really good friends are scattered around the world- India, Germany, Wales, Indiana and California. I maintain as much contact with them all as I can, but it's hard when talking to India requires early or odd hours for the both of us. Either way, being able to moan and groan about everyday life is hard to do when your friends are thirteen thousand miles away.
I do, or did, have a friend here at home that I was excited about seeing again when I returned from the UK, but that it turns out was not to be the case. I'll admit, the friendship has been quite rocky for a few years and if I'm brutal with myself, it was going down hill pretty quickly. But I figured we could start out slow again, work our way back up to being the friends we once were.
We'd known each other since seventh grade; we stood next to each other in choir and while she wasn't the first person I thought I'd spend the next ten years of my life with, she turned out to be the best thing to happen to me from middle school.
Boyfriends are extremely important relationships; family is too. But I am of the opinion that a best friend, that one person you tell everything to, you have sleep overs with, you share all your growing up and maturing with, those that you make life plans with to be in their weddings, to be godparents to their children, to travel the world with them... those relationships are the most important of all. And they hurt the most when they go sour.
I'll admit, I was probably the weaker of the two in the friendship. I was unsure about myself on almost everything and yet I was loud and opinionated, trying to cover up my fears by appearing more confident. Cassie however has always been sure of herself; she's always known what she wanted from life and has never waivered or faltered. Or if she has, she never told me.
And there in lies our problem. I would tell Cassie everything- about my parents divorce, about my crushes on the guy in choir, about how much I wanted to bury my brother and sister and let them sprout roots; but Cassie wasn't as vocal; in fact, more often then not I knew nothing about what was going on in her world. When I began to notice this, I thought it was me- that I was talking too much, that I was being selfish and self centered and not allowing her the time and the space to talk. But when I did try, when I made an effort to allow her space to vent, she refused. She didn't have anything she wanted to talk to me about. And that kinda hurt.
Now the big thing that ruined our friendship, that destroyed ten years of assurance and a perfect safety net was jealousy. I'll admit it, I was very protective of our friendship- Cassie wasn't one to have tons of friends and I'd grown fond of being her "one" special one. She had another friend, a very lovely girl she'd met in gymnastics, but we didn't see her very often and after all, she was no threat to our friendship.
But then she was. She moved in with Cassie and the two got impossibly close; sisterly close. Which is fine, I would tell myself, after all you have a sister and Cassie doesn't and everyone should be allowed a sister. But when Cassie began telling this other friend everything, the things I'd for so long wanted her to tell me, when Cassie began spending every minute with this other friend, when we couldn't do anything or go anywhere without this other friend, I got jealous.
When I would bring it up to Cassie, she would tell me that they were trying really hard to make sure I didn't feel like the third wheel. But the part she didn't get was I didn't want to be the third wheel because if our friendship was a strong as we kept pretending it was, then there shouldn't even be a wheel at all. We would patch it up, she would try and spend more time with me, but she would always go back to the other friend and I would once again be left on the sidelines.
Now some of this was my fault- I was so desperate to get away from home, to be on my own, to discover who I was so I could finally feel like I was standing on two feet, that I didn't consider waiting for her; I went to college early so I could get out, I went to Maine to be even farther away, then after college I moved to LA- I wasn't even 21 yet when I packed up and left everything I'd ever known behind. And LA was rough; LA is always rough, but for someone as young and naive as me, who didn't have the best body issue and a wavering level of confidence, LA was a brutal back hand to the face every day. I tried really hard to fit in- I bought the clothes, I grew my hair out so I'd have the long blond hair, I started working out every day and doing weight watcher's; but what I really was was lonely- and being lonely felt like a failure so instead of admitting it, I turned on those I loved- including Cassie.
I attacked her. I told her everything I'd been feeling, how I was jealous, how little and petty she had always made me feel because she'd always been so confident, how I felt like she'd turned her back on me. And instead of just ignoring it and us going back to our rough uneasy friendship, she fired back- hard.
She told me how stupid I was being, how if it was anybody else she'd have ended the friendship long ago, how she was done dealing with all of my bullcrap and if I didn't get over this NOW and get off her back, then we were done.
It really rocked me; I realized, right then, how important having Cassie in my life was, how much of a rock she'd become and even though it was turning into a hurtful relationship, I really thought I needed her to keep going. I realized how lonely I was and how badly I needed to get out of LA- so I found a different plan, applied for grad schools, and came home. We started out rocky again- but we were doing well before I left for Wales, even doing another of our infamous sleep overs with Harry Potter and Mountain Dew. I left feeling like we'd at least begun to repair our friendship.
Wales was a saving grace for me. I felt comfortable there and confident and being there helped me grow in more ways than I can even begin to describe. I came back from Wales actually feeling like an adult and ready to finally be that adult. But what I didn't realize is that in that year, Cassie had also gone her own way, had also found her niche in life, and had decided I was not meant to be part of it.
Of course, she didn't just tell me this. It was like a guy you go on a date with and then don't really want anything to do with so you ignore his phone calls and pretend not to see his emails. We'd talked just a month before about what we were going to do when I got home (i.e. go and see the latest HP movie; it was our thing after all) but after ten phone calls and a slew of texts and emails, I began to realize she wasn't ever going to respond. So I went to her house, collected my stuff, and left. I unfriended her on facebook and deleted her number from my phone- I was making it as impossible as I could for myself to try and plead with her to take me back. But what I discovered was by cutting her off, even though in my bitterness and anger I told myself this would be so much better for me, that not having her around would allow me to keep growing, I missed her. And I still miss her, even months later. Friendships, like relationships, can break your heart when they end. And in some instances, I think, friendships are even worse than relationships because friendships shouldn't end in such an abrupt way. And while this friendship's destruction was mostly my fault, I can't help but blame her too- because it does take two people to end something and while she may think she's done the best thing and cut me off, I can't help but hope that she misses me too, that she wishes we were still talking. There are nights where all I want is to hear her laugh at one of my jokes or have her nudge my shoulder in that secret friendship way of ours.
Alas.