What the hell is Wallyball?  Oh you’ll love it.  You play in a racquetball court with a volley ball and a net. You play off the walls, it’s fast and it’s fun and it will be hysterical.  Was this the plan the whole time?  Well yeah, we didn’t want to tell you because…Because I’m not the least bit athletic, because I smoke, because I’m bigger than any two of you put together, because I’d be the one running for towels and wouldn’t that be perfect?

I’ll take the forfeit.  You can’t forfeit, it’s her fortieth birthday party.  Yeah I know.  I’m going to take the forfeit.  Why are you saying that, she’ll be crushed.  No she’ll understand.  I have no idea if she understood, I never saw her again.  In my heart I knew that would be the case but I did it anyway.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I was ready to quit this friendship but my method of breaking it apart haunts me to this day.

We had been friends on and off since high school.  It was an interesting friendship, she the blonde athletic beauty that all the boys adored and I the dark haired side kick that all the boys lamented to about never getting her attention. There were times when I thought she keeps me around just to clean up the messes and,  although I could hold my own on the looks side of things, didn’t I make her look all that much more beautiful for my curviness and Italian features.

The relationship was on again for most of the major life events, her wedding, my wedding, her annulment, her next wedding, and the birth of her children.  I was maid of honor, matron of honor, Godmother to one of her children and her mother used to call us sisters.

We weren’t sisters.  There came a time that we no longer wore the same size clothes.  There came a time that I began to smoke more.  There came a time that I seemed to be relegated to the kitchen during parties while she socialized with her, now quite beautiful, friends.  These were the young mothers with all that entailed and all that I had no interest in.  I am a favorite Aunt with all that entails but they couldn’t grasp the importance or the prestige of that title.

At the same time she moved an hour away.  Visits became infrequent and thankfully I didn’t need to recount the goings on in my life with a husband that had become addicted to drugs.  On the rare occasions we did get together, always at her much bigger much more expensive home, the uneasiness was palpable.  I knew this was not going to be a lifelong friendship after all but I’m a never-say-die kind that just keeps trying and blaming myself for the lack of improvement.

At one point in my life I realized that no one had ever left me.  Interesting thought to cross one’s mind but it’s true.  And why would they?  I am a giver, I’m the one who will loan you the money, clean up the mess, make an excuse on your behalf and generally make sure you are comfortable and accommodated. Not always to your benefit I came to find out when my husband and I finally divorced after twenty six years of marriage.

So as I was putting all the pieces together toward moving on, this party arises.  In my heart of hearts I couldn’t imagine I would ever do a thing like not show up.  But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t.  I could not bear the embarrassment of people jumping in front of me for a ball as they had so many times before.  I could not chance the unpredictability of my husband’s behavior.  Who the hell knows what side of the high he might find himself on and did I want to haul an hour away only to turn around anyway.  I couldn’t stand trying to put on a fun face in front of all the slender young mothers again.  And I could not be the one to fetch the towels.  Or serve the food.  Or take the pictures.  Or be invisible.  I just couldn’t.

So that was the end of that.  Why does it haunt me?  I’m not sure.  Did she turn out to be right about my husband and the one sided relationship. Yes.  Was she right when she warned me that being a Godmother was a big responsibility not to be taken lightly before I made the decision to say yes.  Yes.  Was she right about health and smoking and vegetables. Yes.

I’m sure it haunts me because it was heartless and it could have been handled better.  It haunts me because it doesn’t represent the way I do things.  It haunts me because I let them down and I’ve tried my entire life never to let anyone down.  It doesn’t haunt me because it ended but because I was completely selfish in my execution of the friendship’s end.  The irony of using the word execution does not escape me.  I didn’t speak the truth to the person who needed to hear it.

So now it is seventeen years later and I think of her on her birthday each year.  I wonder if I should apologize for my behavior.  And then it occurs to me that she has probably gotten beyond the Wallyball forfeit years ago and I am giving myself entirely too much credit for “ruining” anything.  I look at the state of my life on this day and feel I’ve done more good than harm in the seventeen years that have past but somehow I can’t seem to let it go.  It doesn’t stay with me every waking hour but it does give me pause when there are hard conversations to be had with friends.

I’ve developed an interesting mix of friends since leaving my husband four years ago.  The life I was living was one of isolation so now that I am reengaged I am careful to monitor when to engage fully and when to hold back just a bit.  This is not a constant vigilance but I never again want to fail to recognize when my comfort level is being threatened.  I never want to be relegated to the kitchen unless it’s my choice and oddly enough it’s usually my first choice now.

I no longer smoke. I am slimmer now but certainly not near the curvy figure I once had.  Thankfully, I am much healthier, nuts, berries and the occasional vegetable to thank for that.  I’m older now and I know I will never recapture my youth; it’s gone and mostly cherished for its lessons learned.  I know like I know, that I will try to speak the truth and continue to honor myself in my friendships and that the mishandling of a friendship, or its breakup, is nothing I ever want to repeat.