A Picture in 1000 Words (February)

Note: When I had the idea to write about this picture, I could not find it anywhere. That's when I realized I could see it perfectly in my mind, so I proceeded from there. 

We're standing on the Coney Island boardwalk at sunset. It's the fall of 2000. The weathered grey wood planks of the boardwalk stretch diagonally into the distance behind our legs and hips, the ocean and hazy sky frame our shoulders and faces. She's on my right, and just off of my left shoulder, you can make out the towering spire of a ride in the distance.

I'm wearing a grey turtleneck sweater that I bought on our first day in NYC at a store we'd never heard of before called H&M; we spent nearly two hours there, feeling like we won the lottery. A blue Adidas cap covers my hair, cut short and shaggy–like Meg Ryan's. My beloved brown, cat-eye frames peek out from under the hat's bill. She's in an on-trend, white knit boatneck top with 3/4 length sleeves, her mass of auburn hair loosely gathered in a knot. Her small crossbody bag makes a diagonal line across her chest, and her arms wrap around my shoulders. 

We are physically connected; her hands are clasped comfortably at my collarbone, my fingertips visible over her shoulder, but it's our emotional closeness that stands out to me in this picture. The setting sun is low at our backs. Our eyes, faces, and smiles are soft. There is no sense of urgency in our expressions. We are wholly content in being there together. It's the kind of picture an eighty-year-old woman shows you while regaling you with stories about wild times with her dearest lifelong friend, the one she still talks to every day. 

Twenty years ago, this picture captured the end of our east coast adventure. We were 27, best friends for nearly a decade, born one month apart, sharing an astrological sign, a fondness for well-told stories, and a relentless need for love and acceptance. 

We fell in fast and deep with each other the summer after our freshman year of college. I saw her in my summer school Spanish class and imagined the ways my life would be different if I could be friends with someone who enjoyed themselves as much as she did. Once I worked up the courage to sit near her, a magnetism that felt beyond our control took over. By the end of the summer, we spent most of our time together. The forceful blossoming of our friendship sent shockwaves through every other relationship in our young lives. 

In those first few years, we didn't need a reason to get together. I didn't think twice about inviting her over when all I planned to do that day was clean my room. She was content to lay on the bed, leaf through a magazine, and keep me company. We spent hours at each other's crummy apartments snuggled into spent couches or sprawled out on the floor, sometimes studying, often just talking about anything and everything on our minds. 

I loved her, but maybe even more than that, I loved how she loved me. She didn't buy into my story that I always fell short of my potential, that I was lazy and selfish, and that I wasn't cool or good looking enough. From the very beginning, she maintained that there was nothing wrong with me, that I was worthy of enthusiastic love exactly as I was, even when I made mistakes. Whenever I flirted with believing her, my life shifted into something that felt like my own. What could possibly go wrong?

Loving myself was so new, I relied on a steady infusion of validation from her to keep it up. This kind of intimacy –being seen and loved– was like a drug. Our friendship was fulfilling and also all-consuming. Any move we made towards something or someone else felt like a threat to the other. 

The other day I heard an advice columnist say that the most heartbreaking letters she receives are about friendships gone wrong. This makes perfect sense to me. I was wholly unprepared for the tectonic shifts that my late 20s brought to our friendship and not at all equipped to navigate them gracefully. Our friendship was the most important thing in my world; suddenly, there were other things –careers, boyfriends, exploration– jockeying for rank. 

In the absence of a new way forward together, something unimaginable happened. We slid apart. As life demanded more from us, we faltered, unable to maintain our connection but with no idea how to function as friends with distance between us. We went on like this for years, pulling too close and pushing as far apart as we could. I kept trying to live in the memory of our friendship–the safest harbor I knew–instead of the tumult that was the reality. 

Understandably, we both behaved terribly; we had so much to lose. Hedging against heartbreak, I withheld love from her. Under the guise of maturity, I reduced her vulnerability–her willingness to need me–to petulance. My coldness and cruelty frightened me, but the ickiness of my behavior was more manageable than my fear that she didn't love me the most anymore. I thought I couldn't drown if I were the one sinking the ship.

Visits became rare and eventually stopped. Phone calls were increasingly spotty and awkward. Talking to her after the birth of her second child, I remember feeling devastated that she didn't seem to miss me, or anything about the life that we experienced together. Had she felt that way when I got married? I don't know, I never asked. 

I cringe when I remember some of the things we said to each other, but it's the things we never talked about that haunt me. What might have been possible if I'd understood how to be loving to another person and myself? If I'd had any notion of boundaries, let alone the language to articulate them. The very closeness I treasured in our friendship seemed rooted in an unspoken agreement that there were no boundaries between us. 

We text from time to time, almost always inspired by the memory of an inside joke. Occasionally our threads lead us to the present. I'm curious but hesitant; I can't trust that what I hear won't remind me that it still hurts a little to be on the outskirts of her life. It's strange to feel like I know exactly who she is, and also that I don't know her at all. 

One of those aimless afternoons we spent together early on, she told me about one of her favorite poets. Engulfed in the folds of a floral duvet on her futon perch, she shared something he'd written about the beauty of looking at the past with perfect mercy. The words sounded nice, but I didn't get why she found it so moving, so I asked her what she thought it meant. I've never forgotten her answer. 

She looked up to the corner of the ceiling and said, "Imagine what a gift it would be to look back at your past with the knowledge that everyone did the best they could at the time." Her eyes traveled down the wall, eventually settling on mine. I smiled as it dawned on me, yeah- that would be some gift.