Friendship Fissure

I can tell you the exact moment I heard it crack. It wasn't an ear-splitting lightening bolt, more of a seam splitting on a long-worn garment. If you think about it, you probably heard it too; muted by the clinking of glasses and witty repartee.

I am never sure if friends are reason, season or lifetime friends. I guess no one knows until the friendship either combusts spectacularly, dies a slow, neglected death or one of you actually dies and the other is there to mourn. I have had many of the first two kinds of attrition. Who knows how many more will come and go.

I have made more stupid mistakes than I care to admit. I've lost friends that could have been in the lifetime category over some crazy things (boys come to mind. Being psycho over a boy, also). I've also walked away from my fair share or friendships because there was just too much drama (although the same has been said, sometimes correctly, about me).

Through Facebook, I have been able to find, connect with and apologize to most of those to whom I was an ass and felt terribly about it either the minute it happened, or 10 years later, when I grew up.

In real life (as opposed to Facebook), I struggle with leaving relationships behind these days. I want to believe the best about people, even when they show me something else entirely. Is it because I am loyal or because I won't admit my own mistake in judgment?

Or maybe that seam ripping was the final thread of commonality holding us together.