Something You Never Got Over - Day 22- 30 Day Challenge

Something You Never Got Over

 

 

 

I have always been super lucky to have great relationships....and I am not just referring to the Dating Game, but relationships in general.

 

Friends, co-workers, lovers, FWBs, neighbors, etc., etc., etc....except 1 or 2!

 

I have been so lucky to have so many fabulous people in my life, and I am always endlessly grateful for those relationships.

 

I have many people I have been friends with since I was a child, and I have managed to stay friends with some amazing people  from different phases in my life to this day.

 

Except one.

 

I have ended friendships that I felt no longer were healthy for me, seen friendships slip away slowly and - mostly - painlessly, due to distance, lifestyles, and other things that happen as one meanders this crazy planet in search of meaning, moments, and money. 

 

Ending relationships is sometimes painful, sometimes liberating, and sometimes joyful, and I have always been pretty philosophical about the life cycle of friendships/relationships/or whatever you call interactions with other human beings.  Always understood that, like bad fashion choices, questionable haircuts, and IKEA furniture, you sometimes have to leave people behind to move forward to the place you were meant to be; and I am usually pretty ok with that.

 

Except once.

 

 

 

This is the story of The One That Got Away.  The one person/experience I will never get over.  The one person that I think am constantly thinking about at totally random times and trying to figure out where this person would be if things had turned out differently.

 

 

This is the story of the Three Bimbos....

 

I met Sarita, aka Bimbo #1, Freshman year in math class.  We talked here and there, were in the same group a couple of times, and she was always nice....a bit loud, maybe, but very sweet. Never thought when I met her that she would be one of the most life-changing friends I ever had.

 

2 years later, during our Junior year, we became friends.  Not just any friends, mind, but best friends.  I really don't know when our casual 'Hi there's' in the halls became friendship, I just know that, all of a sudden, we were friends.  Nicoretta, aka Bimbo #2, I met through Cheer....I think.  Maybe I met her before then, I am not totally sure.  You see, once the three of us became a trio, it felt like we had always been friends forever...and that we always would be.

 

I am not sure which of us coined the phrase '3 Bimbos' (completely inappropriate moniker for 3 virgins who NEVER had boyfriends!), or who decided we should be Sarita, Nicoretta, and Margarita---don't judge us, we were 16!! 

 

I just know that we had the kind of friendship you see in movies. 

 

 

 

Always together, writing each other 3-way notes and passing them in the halls between classes, and lots of shenanigans.  We had crushes on boys and called each other "Mrs. [insert crushes last name here]" when we were not in school, we made plans to go to college together and continue our BFF-ness forward into life. 

 

Shit, we even made each other MIX TAPES.....and you know, in the '90's, if you made someone a damn mix tape, your asses were pretty much married!  We labeled our mix tapes S-N-M Jams (again, clever little virgins making sexual references that had no basis in reality!) and blasted them for weeks on end.

 

S. loved the mall.  I hated the mall.  That did not stop me from accompanying her to the mall whenever the mood, gas money, and me being sprung from the prison of my house struck.  S. would roll up my driveway in her Suzuki Samurai, I would run out the door, and we were off.  N. would either already be in the car, or we would grab her on the way out of town and we were OUT.  Burning down to Sacramento, blasting music, talking non-stop, having the police roll up behind us and use the bullhorn to shout at her to slow down.....that was the life.

 

N. and I. were cheerleaders, and S. would show up at games-not exactly because she was a big fan of football and basketball -- but to whistle and clap when we danced, grab us afterwards, and head off to Jack in the Box to hang out in the parking lot and see what we could see.  Small town, guys, so shut up.

 

 

Probably headed to Jack in the Box...

 

 

What can I say about the 3 Bimbos, and about S. in general?  Loving, silly, sweet, kind.  She had the most beautiful smile, the most gorgeous hair (and she knew it--she was always wearing it down and flinging it around!), a hilarious laugh, and some weird taste in music - or so it seemed to me at the time.  She would blast the Steve Miller Band and the Eagles when I was dying to listen to Boyz 2 Men or TLC, but she loved Nirvana as much as everyone else did, and would listen to Depeche Mode as often as I asked her to.  She would come to school and tell us about how her butt had striped burns from the tanning bed, write me notes to make me feel better when the love of my high school life was being flaky or weird, and she totally is mostly responsible for my 1st child being born, as she loved this dorky goody-two-shoes former neighbor of hers, and pushed me endlessly to 'go out' with him.

The three of us laughed together, cried together, and generally just loved each other....completely and unreservedly.  We sometimes held hands while walking around, and we always said "I love you" when we got off the phone.  We were three silly girls in the prime of our teen lives, we were best friends, and we were golden....

 

She should be standing right in front of that big guy.....

 

 

Spring Break came along, and we had been talking about a trip down to Santa Cruz to check out the town we were going to move to and attend college at, once we were done with NU.  I remember I had already talked my dad into approving it, and was nervously watching my mother for signs that would let me know it was a good time to ask. 

 

We didn't make it to Santa Cruz over Spring Break, because on April 16, 1992, my beautiful friend left us.  Forever.

 

There really are no words to describe the gut-wrenching soul-crushing agony of losing someone you love.  You either know it or you don't.  I'm not going to try to describe what the days and weeks and months after we lost her were like....I couldn't.

 

What I can tell you is this - I think about her all the time.  Not daily, but probably weekly.  I am always wondering where she would live if she were still with us, who would her husband be, how many kids would she have...Stuff like that.  



 

For many reasons, that aren't my place to state here, N. and I sort of drifted apart after that.  Our hearts were still so connected, and the love was definitely there, but the fact was that S. was not there anymore....and that absence, that void, was too painful to be in the same room with.  We still hung out here and there, and we still talked whenever we saw each other, but the simple fact is that the three of us were something larger than life and, without S., we were just us.  Two friends with lots of little things in common, and one major thing that we could never have in common again.  I think it was about 5 years before we could really hang out together and be the same friends we were before, without feeling crushed over what was lost.

 

 

 Sometimes I dream about S., even to this day.  And it's lovely, because she is always that same beautiful girl that never has a touch of glitter in her gorgeous curls (that's grey hair to you mere mortals), she doesn't have wrinkles, and she is exactly the same as she was the Friday I hugged her goodbye. 

 

But it's also awful; because, whether it happens in my dream, or whether it happens when I wake up----there is always that split second when the whole thing slams into me all over again.  It's a different kind of pain than it used to be, but it still hurts.  Sometimes, I will see someone with her hair, or hear a laugh that sounds like hers, and I always stop and look twice....just in case, you know?  And then I am reminded, again, that it could never happen....

 

 

N. and I are still friends, by the way.  We have gone years without talking here and there, but we can pick up right where we left off without missing a beat.  Over the years we have continued to laugh together, cry together, and we have shared in each other's lives from afar with love.  N. and I will always be friends.  I am fairly certain that when we are little old ladies, we will be sitting by some shore at sunset, drinking wine, and probably talking about our grandchildren.  I am looking forward to that, I truly am.  And maybe, just maybe, there will be some time where we can talk about our beautiful S., and bring her into that moment without it being sad, without breaking our hearts again. 

 

 

 

This should have been us....S. would have been the one hop-scotching!