Shutdown Avoided & Old Friends

Apparently you guys talked me out of it, and with good timing too.

I'm sure everyone has regrets of some sort and I'm sure that everyone has someone from their past that brings a feeling of sadness that sweeps over your body if and when you ever think of them.

Mine is Kelli.

The nutshell is this: We met in college and became good friends. She was the one to whome I first admitted being attracted to Michael. In fact, she was the one who first told me what his name was (and still is, I suppose). I was in her wedding. She was in my wedding. She got pregnant and had a beautiful baby boy. I got pregnant and we wrote to each other weekly. When Ellie was born, it all stopped.

I have my theories on why she stopped being my friend but they're all just theories. They all seem so silly, certainly not significant enough to warrent ending a friendship. But obviously they are. Or perhaps my friendship just didn't matter to her as much as she did to me. That can't be. I was in her wedding just the same.

Anyway, I won't go into details of the agonizing questioning I've put myself through, wondering what happened. After trying to contact her multiple times and in multiple ways, she never told me.

It had been nearly 3 years since we spoke by the time I happened to run into her husband and first son at the store this last weekend. It was bound to happen sometime, right? After all, we do live in the same town.

Seeing Kenny made my stomach lurch. It brought back so many unanswered questions that I knew were inappropriate to ask him. It's not his place to answer them. So instead we chatted about other neutral topics. Where do you work now? What about Kelli? Is she still working? How is she doing? What's your younger boy's name? Do they go to daycare? Oh yes! I can't believe how expensive it is either.

And oh, by the way... why did Kelli stop speaking to me? But no. I didn't ask.

On the way out to the car we saw her. She was pulling up their car to pick up Kenny. And there, inside my stomach, was a sensation of dread. It was a horrible sensation and I found myself wondering what it would be like to go up and give my old friend a hug. But at the same time I questioned if I should even say anything to her.

Michael told me I should. He was probably right. I walked up to her car and was nearly certain she was avoiding looking my way. I knocked on her window so that she had no choice but to respond. As Michael helped Kenny load stuff into their car, Kelli and I chatted.

No. That's not right. It wasn't much of a chat.

Have you ever been with someone who obviously doesn't know who you are but doesn't want to admit it? It was almost, but not quite, the complete opposite of that. At least in that case the person tries to pretend that nothing is wrong.

There was no doubt in my mind that Kelli did not want to be talking to me at that moment. She answered my questions with one worded answers. She asked the same questions in return to be polite but didn't offer up any new ones. The akwardness was too much for me to bare so I quickly said my good byes: "Well, I thought I'd stop by and say hi. It was nice to see you and the boys again."

"Yeah, bye."

Then my family and I went back to our car and sat in silence. Well, Michael and I sat in silence as Ellie chatted away. There wasn't much to say and I'm sure that my tears told Michael that the only thing he could do was squeeze my hand. And that he did. Two or three times.