Not calling.

So the other day I was running errands, the usual Saturday stuff, including a stop at the Target for essentials that only Target can give me (including really good plastic bags that I use to line my garbage cans in both my and the kitties' bathrooms. No other plastic bag comes close. I actually started using my own bags for shopping everywhere else BUT the Target, because my bathroom garbage cans are so flipping wide nothing else works, leaving the standard grocery store plastic bags completely useless to me. Oh, and because anything else is wasteful. That's right.), when I get to the checkout counter. I don't notice things in general, so I certainly didn't pay much attention to the clerk, but as I was hovering around the POS (the ATM thingie. Did you know those are called Point of Sale systems? I was a banker once, you know, back when these things were invented), the checker says to me, "You look familiar. What's your name?" Since I was not wearing a name tag and he was, being a checker and all that, I checked his out before looking at his actual face. Stunned.

The last time I saw this kid he was like in grade school. I think. What grade are you in when you're 14? Middle school? High school? I don't know. And it's not like I saw him all the time - he's the grandson of a gal that used to be one of my best friends. I haven't talked to her in probably four years, and I hadn't been around the two years prior to that, which would mean that was the last time I saw him. And now look at him: working at Target. Almost 21. Grown up.

I stammered a little bit, still shocked at how much HE had aged when I so OBVIOUSLY have not. Asked about his family, his parents, his grandmother... which was sort of awkward. He gave me a pretty good run-down while he helped the shoppers behind me (who were nice enough to let me cut in front of them to begin with, so it would have been rude of me to not move out of the way while we chatted. I'm nothing if I don't have manners), and at the end of it, I told him I was proud of him, all grown up (like some kind of 44 year old woman or something) (oh yeah..) and he said, You should call my Nanna. I lied and said I would. Because what else was I going to say?

That we had been best friends for quite a few years, even roommates at one point? That we used to travel together with another friend (one, you might recall, that I have vented about countless times over the almost-five-years this blog has been in existence) and even bought timeshare together? That, when I moved to Mexico, for some reason in the middle of my first run she just STOPPED being my friend, along with the other one (but probably BECAUSE of the other one) with no explanation and no further ado? That when I got back from Mexico and she brought over some kitchen stuff she'd been using while I was gone, the conversation was stilted and awkward, and I don't know why but I felt like she was really not happy to be around me? And that I haven't talked to her since, but at the same time, SHE hasn't talked to ME since?

Yeah. I'm sure I won't call. I've spent a pretty good part of my life wondering what I did to make people suddenly not be my friend (it's not like it happens all the time, which is almost worse). Sooner or later I have to just realize that the odds are pretty good it's not me, it's them. And I've got some great friends who DO want to stick around. It's just that for someone like me, you always want the one that got away. To like you. To not have gone away. And that way you may never learn WHY they went away, so you don't have to face the possibility that it could be you, after all.

But really, in this case, I know it's not me. And so, again, I won't call. Because what's the point? Where is this going to go? I'm living this long without her, and I'm a reasonably happy person, so I don't think I need to open up a dialogue with someone who didn't care enough to keep the friendship alive in the first place. Instead, I'll just respect the me, the one who is stunned and then wildly amused when she finds out someone doesn't like her.

I mean, honestly. How do you not like ME?

Ridiculous.