"I never had better friends than the friends I had when I was twelve." -Stand By Me

When someone is important to you, you remember almost everything. But the one thing you never forget is when you first met them.

For example, it was surreal when I found out I was pregnant. It was something that I had wanted for so long, but when it actually happened it didn't seem real. Obviously, I'm not supermodel thin, so I didn't think I looked pregnant until the day before Weston was born. I actually thought he was a girl, and up until the moment that idiot woman blurted out, "... here's the spine and the kidney, and it's a boy...." I had no clue that my child could have a penis. I thought someone had made a mistake because there was no way that my first baby was supposed to be a boy. I obviously had a hard time adjusting. But I can tell you the first time I "met" him. It wasn't when the "bubbles" turned into actual movements around 22 weeks, it was 2 days after exclaiming, "It's a WHAT?" to that idiot nurse. We were shopping in Chicago and we stepped into FAO Schwartz at Macy's. The first thing I saw was a room sized dragon. A Dragon! My sister threw a pen and I caught it. Left handed. Everywhere I looked were tiny little boy things - Cubs outfits, tiny shoes, snow balls made from the Lake-effect snow. These were signs. Chicago, Macy's, FAO Schwartz... they were all telling me that my magical, miracle baby was meant to be a little boy. In that moment, he became real, he became Weston. And I have known him ever since.
I can remember my first real meeting of every important person in my life, other than my siblings and family. I met Scott in a bar, and he barely looked at me - he just stared into his plate stealing glances up at me once in a while, but that moment changed my life forever. I met Sue during the first days of high school, she was a friend of Beth's and just blended in with us. She may have blended then, but she has shone as a friend and stood out ever since. The first time I saw Beth, we were ten years old. I was picked up at Horace Mann Elementary for 5th grade band. We travelled north, past my house, to Elijah Buell to pick up more kids. And on the bus comes this girl with all of this hair. Tons of perfectly curled strawberry-blond hair billowing all around her like an angel. She barely smiled, and I felt a little intimidated by this perfectly coiffed ten-year-old. She quit the flute after a year, but we were friends by the time we met up at Lyons Middle School the next year. We fought all through middle school, but had merged as the Alpha female duo in high school. It wasn't perfect, we fought like feral cats for years, but I know that I can call her anytime and she'll be there.
I remember the first time I spoke to Anousha. We were 11 years old and in the 6th grade. We shared a homeroom teacher, Mrs. Maxa, and we sat about 4 rows apart. When we switched rooms to Mrs. Streba (Lyons had us switching rooms and teachers for different lessons to get us ready for high school.) Anousha ended up sitting in front of me. She had very dark wavy hair almost to her waist, pulled up in a barrette in the front. She turned around and we started talking. Somehow we got on the topic of families, and she told me about her older sisters, who were married and had kids... it seemed so fantastic. I was a little jealous of this life completely different from mine. (And by Clinton standards, the fact that I was a Navy Brat was a little outlandish itself.) We were friends. We all hung out together, gradually whittling down the big gaggle of girls into smaller cliques. By high school it was down to 5 or 6 girls, and somehow Anousha and I had paired up. Maybe it was our love of soap operas, Antonio Sabatto, Jr. and the X-Files. Who knows. But at some point this girl, completely unlike me - I was chubby/fat, pale and outspoken; she was skinny, exotic and well-spoken - ended up as close to me as my sister. She was the first person I thought to call whenever I had something to say. I loved her parents, her little sister; I loved being at their house at all hours. Almost every memory I have of 1991-1998, and most of my best memories until 2002 have these 3 women in them, and Anousha is in every single one. Maybe that's why I can't give up on any one of them (though Sue has never given me reason to think I should.)
After sophomore year of college, Beth drifted off. She wasn't lost. She was just busy and not the best communicator when left to her own devices, she will be the first to admit this. She was awful at email, while I embraced the technology and Sue bought stock in Hallmark greeting cards. Anousha was best at the phone. Once you got a hold of her, the phone was busy for hours. I used to buy calling cards dedicated just to her calls. After college, things stayed the same way, except Sue had taken over the technological world, and Anousha seemed to have found a love for letters.
Then... we all started to leap in different directions completely. Beth married, graduated law school, and moved to Delaware. Sue started looking for new opportunities in distant lands and eventually ended up in Amarillo. I fell in love with Scott and got married. And Anousha? She leapt all the way to California. LA. I was jealous of her again, of all of them. They had the courage to leave everything and start fresh. But I made a choice. I chose personal happiness over a career. That's my choice. I have my family and I love them dearly. but some days I wonder what it would be like to have moved away and had the Big Career or the Big City.
Beth and Sue kept up their usual contact. It was reliable and comfortable. Anousha, on the other hand, was anything but predictable. We would go for months talking daily or weekly and then nothing. She would stop all together. No email, calls or letters. It would last a few weeks and then it would start up again. It would be a little awkward and then everything would go back to normal. It went on like this for a long time. And then, the breaks in conversation turned into months. But she always came back. Apologetic, but back. When I got pregnant, things seemed to go back to normal. We talked a lot. She met Shannon and I in Chicago on that long ago weekend when I "met" my son in toy department with a room sized Dragon. She was a constant during those 40 or so weeks.
And then Anousha stopped returning my calls the 2nd or 3rd week of September 2008. It was about 2 weeks before our 10-year high school reunion and Weston was 6 weeks old. Weeks later I heard from her sister Erika that her car had broken down and that was why she couldn't make the trip back to Iowa. She never told me this. She just didn't show. Sue and Beth couldn't make it back. I was alone. And it was fine... almost fun. It would have been more fun had any of them been there, but we're adults, I get it. Shit happens. We received baby gifts (with the best wrapping paper!) and Christmas presents from Anousha, each containing notes. But no response to phone calls. Via text we agreed that the I'd call on Christmas. She didn't answer and I spent a long time talking to her parents. And then I cried. I missed my friend. I couldn't afford to send gifts. Had she returned a call, she would have known this. It's been a year now. I've sent emails. I've texted and I've left voicemails - Some heart-wrenching and some so angry that I couldn't contain them any longer. I have needed a friend more this year than any year in my life since 1989. And the one person who was as close to me as my sister was not there. I couldn't find her. And she wouldn't even let me know where to look. It felt like a funeral.
(I would like it to be known that I still talk to her sister, Erika. Just because Anousha has cut me out, does not mean I have to give up her family. I grew up with them too.)
So... after a year, imagine my surprise when my sister Shannon tells me that Anousha accidentally called her on Sunday. (I wonder if Anousha told her that she never meant to talk to her at all?) They talked for a while, almost a half hour. And according to Shannon, after 5 minutes of awkwardness, everything went back to normal. Anousha doesn't call me (or our other friends), because as she told Shannon, there's nothing new to tell. Ok... but what about the other conversation? What about the, "Hi. My life is the same, what's new with you?" or "You're last message sounded a little off, are you ok?" or even better, "I went to this Awards party with Erika and you'll never believe who touched my shoulder at the bar!" Any of this would work. Shannon gave Anousha 24 hours to make contact. Obviously she failed. again. And Shannon forgot to tell me. Because... we've been busy. And because Shannon knew it would hurt my feelings. You'd think I'd be over her by now. But I'm not. I am so mad. And lonely. This one person who used to fill a spot in my life jumped ship. And because everyone else fits so perfectly, there's this gaping hole where she used to be. I heard a rumor that Anousha reads my blog. I wonder what she will think of this. Will it move her to call me? Probably not. Will she reevaluate her life? I don't know or care. I've never cared what a person's career was or how they were getting to where they wanted to be. I only cared that they were happy and healthy. Because they were my friends, and as a friend, all I ever wanted for them was happiness. I was told that I should write an obituary or eulogy for my friendship with Anousha. That since she had decided to end it, I should follow her lead and let her go. And I had started it, thinking closure was the healthiest thing for me. I couldn't do it. I couldn't give up. I'm a masochist thriving for punishment and pain and begging my sister from another family to get her shit together and call her friend!

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."

Postscript: I didn't write this to offend anyone. I am upset with this entire situation. I am not apologizing by any means. I have a right to my feelings and how I deal with them. I am just tired of holding everything in. I needed to air the laundry, clean and dirty. I don't feel much better, but I do feel like I have said all that I can on this now. I can hear my little boy fast asleep in his room and I need to wish him good night.