I am looking at a disarming email from someone I had long filed away, closing off my heart to both the friendship and the heartbreak that I associated with them. I find myself wondering if there such a thing as letting too much time pass, or damage beyond repair. This email does not beg for forgiveness or ask for another chance, instead it’s exactly the kind of thing she would have sent when we were the best of friends. Maybe it is her olive branch. The question is what will I do with it.
I know I have said this many times but I will say it again - my friends are like family to me. I love and I trust with all my heart. When I let someone in, I share all of me, and, in many ways, I blindly trust that the people I truly let in will never intentionally do anything to hurt me. So when someone that I have grown to see as one of my best friends hurts me the way this person did, I don’t know if amends can ever be made. People who don’t know the specifics might think that our falling out was over a boy, and yes there was a boy involved, but our friendship didn’t end over a boy. Our friendship ended over her blatant disrespect for my feelings, over broken trust, and over her lack of respect for my need for time and space.
I never thought I would be sitting here contemplating accepting a very small gesture that seems to be a start in making amends. If I am honest, I never contemplated it because I never thought she would ever reach out. Now that I am in this position - I don’t know what I should do. Do I ignore it? Do I respond? Do I even want to open the door, even just a sliver, to reconciling?
Some cuts run too deep, some things are unforgivable, I just don’t know if this is one of those things. Could I trust her again? Could I even fake a smile and be civil with someone that in so many ways broke my heart?
I’m just not sure.
