THIS THING CALLED FRIENDSHIP

I received a friend request from someone who used to be a very close and dear female friend.

I smiled with derision, wondering what she wanted with me now. I was however careful not to delete the request like I did most others before and after hers. 

Our friendship had been only a couple of months shy of clocking a decade. We had been counting proudly in the previous years. 

"We" consisted this female friend, I, and my best friend. We loved to call ourselves the three musketeers. 

Well, this particular musketeer began to keep her distance after some time, kept a lot of secrets from the rest of us and most times refused to pick our calls or return them. 

I grew tired of reaching out to someone who clearly didn't want to be reached. In fairness though, she wasn't doing that to just us, but to others as well. 

But then I thought, even if she does that to other people, can't she trust us her friends of many years enough to talk to us, whatever the problem might be? Then I concluded that she definitely no longer regarded us as her friends. 

The last straw that broke the camel's back for me: She unfollowed me on Instagram (and my bestie, the third of us musketeers, too; this was after leaving my several WhatsApp messages on "read" without replying to any).

So I made myself to stop being hurt and moved on. But not before blocking her on Instagram first, and then on WhatsApp, and then blocking her phone numbers. 

I told myself nothing in life should be a do-or-die affair, not even friendship; and that people would hurt less if they realized that all things in life have expiry dates, even friendship. 

Sometimes, people's roles in our lives may not be one to last forever. My estranged friend's role was probably one of such. I made peace with that and moved on. 

The brutal aspect of me moving on this manner is that such people I get over are usually as good as dead to me. I don't look back. 

But guess what I did yesterday? 

I did look back. 

No, I didn't accept her friend request. I haven't, still. But I unblocked her phone number and called her using my second line whose number I was sure she wouldn't recognize. 

I called not to whine or judge. I called to ask why. 

Because I think I know now that she wasn't deliberately ignoring me, ignoring us. 

I think I know now that she was actually running away. 

Just like I recently have been running away from the ones I love, my best friend inclusive.

I called to tell her that we can come back as friends if that's what she wants. 

And that she offering an olive branch by way of a friend request more than suffices as an apology for me, for I see the bravery in her gesture. 

I have not been able to go back to the people I pushed away during the period I zoned out last month. Where do I start my explanations/apologies from. Whom do I start with? 

So daily, the gulf widens and I keep shying away from erasing the awkwardness I have caused in my relationships. 

Perhaps, we may not fully understand some situations until we find ourselves in them; neither will we understand some people until we walk in their shoes.

This thing called Friendship, after Love, has got to be the most delicate phenomenon within human relation.

07.08.19