The Sorry Letter from my Friend that I Wrote to Myself

Dear Meg,

I am so sorry.

This year has been a difficult one for all of us and you’ve walked through it with us.

You faced fear with us.

You faced lack with us.

You faced late hours with us.

You faced overtime with us.

You faced gossip with us.

You faced doubt with us.

You faced making the wrong decisions with us.

You learned with us.

You fell flat with us more than once.

You picked up slack when we couldn’t and vice versa.

You grew with us.

You listened to my 11pm and 2am texts.

You carried the burden of knowing our very personal problems and struggles.

You were my friend.

Meg, I am so sorry. I have failed you as a friend.

When your brother died, I didn’t know what to do or say, but you said that was okay and I believed you.

What I didn’t understand was the deep pain and weariness that you were carrying each day. I saw that you had lost all passion for everything and it scared me — I thought I had done something wrong. None of it made sense to me. I lost sleep at night because I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who you were anymore. I felt like we were going to lose everything.

Meg, I was selfish. All I could think about was my own discomfort.

At a time when you lost your brother after also losing your grandma, going though a divorce, learning to be a single mom, and ending a relationship, I pestered you endlessly to figure out why you had changed. I wore you down. I criticized your decisions. I accused you of being an attention getter. I accused you of being ungrateful. I accused you of only looking out for your own interests. I wrote passive aggressive things about you on social media. I accused you of many things that really hurt you and then I blocked you.

Meg, I’m so sorry. I wish I would have come straight to you and laid down my accusations, put aside my uncomfortable feelings, and sorted through our hurt together. I wish I had been the bigger person.

Both of us are hurting — it’s so obvious to everyone who knows both of us. Our friends are wondering what happened. They ask why we’re not friends anymore.

I know neither of us have been perfect. You began believing awful things about me and that hurt me more than anything. After that, I felt like anything I said would be taken the wrong way but I was doing the same thing to you. It was a mess. It’s hard for the two of us to be diplomatic when we feel hurt or misunderstood. We’re both extremely sensitive, me probably more outwardly so than you.

Being sensitive creatives is a beautiful thing that we embrace. We are beautifully, creatively imperfectly flawed.

We loved each other deeply and we still do, that’s why it hurts so much that there’s a long gray silence between us.

I’m so sorry.

I wish we could sort through this together, like spending hours looking for the perfect typography for our next project. Without me, your typography game just isn’t as strong — just admit it already. (I know you just smiled.)

We were both better together.

I miss you.

Can we get tea soon?

— M

Writing this was part of my healing plan with my therapist. She’s been encouraging me to write more of my feelings because I was stuffing them all. She explained that while you love people very much, it’s OK to be angry at them when they hurt you. Friendships are not black and white. Relationships have many gray areas. It takes time to get over hurt. It takes time to sort through feelings. She says that with my gift of being so open about my feelings, I can help other people. She says this will help me heal and help someone else heal. I’m not sure about that. But I decided to try it.

My therapist encouraged me to write a letter that I wish I would have gotten. I’ve written several of these now and it’s helped me process my feelings.

I don’t know if my friend will talk to me again. I don’t think she would say I am a good friend to her. I’m sorry for that. I failed her, too. I wonder what she would want to hear in an apology from me. Maybe someday she will tell me. Maybe someday our salty tears will mix with our tea and the sun will soften the atmosphere as we smile through our tears.