1. She was crazy and exhausting, and she would tell you she loved you, would do anything for you, right before stealing money from your purse or dragging your boyfriend behind the bleachers when you weren't looking. She was the funniest person I've ever known, and although she drove me completely insane, she also made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe. She didn't know how to be healthy, normal; she only knew how to be self-destructive. A part of me hated how she was always creating drama out of thin air -- couldn't just enjoy five minutes of her privileged life before driving it head first into a brick wall and smashing it to pieces -- but, a bigger part of me loved her for the complicated mess she was. One day, in the hall outside my Spanish class, another girl started yelling at me, loud and cruelly, and my friend -- this girl whose hand I held when she lied to me about a pregnancy scare, the girl who I forgave for going after my first love, the girl who broke into my house with her boyfriend to use my empty bed -- just stood beside this girl and avoided looking me in the eye. I could forgive her for so much, overlook even more. I believed I knew why she was the way she was. I believed she cared about me, somewhere, deep down. But, in the end, I couldn't forgive the indifference. Lie, cheat, scream, steal. But silence? That hurt too much. Ten years later, I wonder if ending that friendship was the right thing to do.
2. He was a friend of a friend's boyfriend who became a friend of mine. He was a staunch Republican, interested in politics and arguing with me about them. We'd spend countless hours laughing, yelling, drinking. There was always more than a friendship but less than a relationship between us, and I could never figure out how I could care so much for someone while not caring enough. Regardless, I'd thought we'd stay in each other's lives forever. I foolishly considered him a certainty, but then he graduated, and after one awkward phone call and a handful of long emails, we simply never talked again.
3. I can't even remember exactly when he and I met; it's so vague and fuzzy. He was my polar opposite, and the only thing we could ever agree on was our respect for one another's opinion. Then, just like that, I betrayed his trust, and he cut off contact, swiftly and painfully. I tried to talk to him, to email him long, rambling apologies, but he never responded. I still send him notes every now and again to wish him a happy birthday, to tell him his wedding looked beautiful, that I wish he could meet my son, but he's never written back. On the one hand, I get it. On the other, I really, really don't. Doesn't he miss me? Wasn't it all so long ago? Apparently not.
4. What happened to our friendship was really odd and complicated and I don't blame either of us for what happened, yet I don't think we can get past it either. She was so damn funny and I credit her sense of humor for seeing me through one of the hardest years of my life. She was also an incredible friend, a friend who understood me and looked past all my flaws and enjoyed hanging out with me, and it stuns me sometimes that I ever found friends who were as good to me as she was. We're Facebook friends, so I know what she's up to, where she works, but I don't ever see her, can't imagine I ever will, although I hope I'm wrong.
5. I sometimes Google her because it would be so great to see what kind of person she's become, but where the Internet hasn't failed me in countless ways, it's never led me to her corner of the world. We were best friends when we were so young, and then my parents divorced, and my mom, sister and I moved to Texas, and she obviously stayed in California. I saw her once when I went back to visit my dad, but that was it. She was full-spirited and funny, and if we had been just a little older or, hey, if there had been email readily available to us back in 1993, we might have stayed friends. And maybe Google will come through for me one day, after all.