When Friendships Teach You Invaluable Lessons

It’s a sunny Thursday afternoon. The time is 12:30p.m. The campus is bustling with students on a very important mission—to eat! As I approach the music building, I can’t help but feel anxious for my private violin lesson at 1:30p.m. I swing open the main door and fling myself, my backpack, my violin, and a grocery bag in with me. Spotting an empty bench in the lobby, I plop down all my things and pick up the grocery bag. Slowly, I remove the contents and placing them on the bench. “I feel so lonely. Every Thursday for fifteen weeks I was going to have to sit here and eat lunch all by my lonesome self; how pitiful is that? But you would think that after all the effort I put in to get my violin playing this far, I would be more grateful that I am at this school, to have these great lessons from the teacher I want, and to not have to pay for tuition,” I thought to myself as I open up a small, white, “Chik-fil-a” box filled with chicken nuggets. “I just want to go to college with my boyfriend in Florida and not have to worry about achieving all these goals and practicing my violin all the time. I miss him so much,” I whine to myself. “What is wrong with me? Why am I complaining? I should be so grateful I even have a loving boyfriend who cares so much about me, that he’s willing to stay together even though we live fourteen hours apart. I should just stop whining so much,” I whispered to myself. Just then, someone walks up and asks “Can I sit with you?” “Sure,” I say, feeling ashamed of myself for having been so negative, because she has the biggest brightest smile on her face. “You’re Meghan right?” With a rather quiet voice, I respond, “Yeah.” I remembered her from orchestra, she also played an instrument—viola. I had just made a friend I plan to never forget.

Despite the many things that were going seemingly “wrong” in my life, she was there to help me along. We were only two weeks into the first semester of our freshman year and I was feeling very overwhelmed, as is expected I suppose. She kinda took the load off. She is just one of those kind of people who make you feel great inside, like you’re worth something. Now, all of a sudden I had someone to hang out with on the weekends. We eventually became “practice accountability partners”; at about 7:45 am every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we would meet up and go to the music building to practice. Later, we even started working out on Friday afternoons together. One Saturday we went shopping all day and went out to lunch at Olive Garden; it was so much fun! When my eighteenth birthday rolled around, she covered my door in a huge poster that said, “Happy 18th Birthday Meghan” and put streamers up, got me lots of balloons, took me to dinner, got me my favorite candy bar, and had a bunch of my friends from the music school sign a card for me. Things were great! I was just so excited to have someone to do stuff with all the time. But I guess all things here on this Earth, whether good or bad, do come to an end.

One day she did not returned one of my phone calls; I even left a voicemail. Finally, after calling a couple more times, I ran into her. “Hey, did you get my message?” She looked at me quizzically. “No,” she replied, “my phone has been acting up and my minutes have run out from talking to my family for so long. Sorry…” “Oh, that’s fine,” I said, thinking it was nothing. But then, something strange happened…I started to notice how she would not hang around me as much and eventually not at all. Over a period of one week I watched our friendship crumble into a huge pile of rubble. I could not believe this was happening. We had been inseparable for over a month and she would hardly give me the “time of day.” It was Saturday, I gathered some things that she had lent me and some different snacks that I knew she would enjoy and packaged them up. As I headed down to her dorm room, I felt so confused. “Why was she acting so weird,” I thought. I knocked and heard a voice inside; it sounded like hers. “Well, maybe we’ll finally have a chance to talk about it,” I thought, so hopeful that we could talk things out and that there was just some big misunderstanding or that she was in a bad mood and it was not directed toward me personally. Suddenly, the door swung open and I saw her talking rather loudly on the phone. Quickly, she said “hey, thanks” while she grabbed the package that I handed to her and then a quick “see ya.” I felt terrible! After a long time of waiting, I got to talk to her one on one and settle this once and for all. Over dinner we discussed what had been developing in our lives since the last time we had really spoken, which had been about two to three weeks. But after a little catching up, I was ready to ask her the burning question inside me—“Look girl, I do not mean to be rude or blunt, but what happened? I really do not feel like we have been hanging out as much as we used to. I mean please let me know if I did anything wrong. Please. I really want to make anything I did wrong right.” The look on her face from the moment I opened my mouth was one that told me she knew exactly what I was talking about. Then, she quietly responded, “I’m not mad at you or anything if that is what you think. I just feel like maybe we have been hanging out too much. I mean, I want to hang out with you and everyone else, too.” “I see,” I said reluctantly. I left dinner that night with a heavy heart. I had just lost a really great friend. The reality was just beginning to sink in.

It’s amazing how you can feel so connected to someone and have all these expectations that they will want to be friends as long as you do. But the truth is, is that life is not fair and no one is perfect, so there will be disagreements and unrealistic expectations. I failed in my expectations for her. I thought that she took friendship as seriously as I did. Every once in awhile I will cry about how much I miss her. It hurts so bad to see her walk by and not even acknowledge me there. I hate that we are not friends anymore, however, if she is happier not being friends with me, then at least she is happy. I miss her reassuring voice, her encouraging practicing tips, and support as a friend. I will always miss her, because she affected me in a way that I feel no one else has.