My old friend

I suppose I should do a ‘thirty days of truth’ post. After all, what’s the point of saying you’re going to do something and then not actually doing it….?

Day number nine came out of the envelope today which is:

Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted

A lot of people have drifted in and out of my life – it’s par for the course isn’t it? People come, people go and it’s only the people that matter who stay…. for the most part, anyway.

I have to confess to having a bit of a habit of letting people vanish out of my life. If I get the sense someone is going to leave me then I tend to get in there first and cut all ties. It does me no good, and I’m trying to work on it, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s just the way I’m built.

Anyway – I’m rambling around the question here, aren’t I?

In 2003 I was studying for my masters degree and working part time in a University library. It was the best crap job I ever had because a) I worked evenings when there was no-one around and I pretty much wrote my whole dissertation whilst at work and b) I met Katie P.

Katie P and I had an awful lot in common – values, beliefs, fears and a passion for fiction. She was training to be a teacher at the time so also did a lot of studying at work, but when we weren’t studying we whiled away the hours chatting, swapping books and on occasion having those nice safe arguments you can have with someone who although on your wavelength has a slight difference of opinion.

There was also an awful lot that Katie P and I didn’t have in common, and in some ways, that was the reason that the friendship became so precious to me. We came from completely different backgrounds and her upbringing and experiences were a far cry from the comparatively privileged life I had lived. I guess it hadn’t occurred to me how many opportunities I’d had in life until I met Katie P – I’d been too busy focusing on the bad.

Anyway – we were like two peas in a pod for the year we worked together. We spent our free time together as well as our time at work, and at the time, I couldn’t have imagined my life without her friendship in it. During the time we knew one another we both experienced some dark days and we each carried the other through them – it seemed to me that I had found a friend for life.

And then I moved to London.

We kept in touch for a long time – speaking on the phone and regular visits. But in time the phone calls dropped off and the visits fewer and further between. That’s what distance does I guess. Katie P and I exchange a few text messages a year now. Which is sad.

I miss Katie P, but, at the same time, I suspect it was one of those friendships that was there for a while and was never meant to last. Me moving away just speeded up the process but it doesn’t take away the happy times we shared whiling away a year doing the best crap job in the world…

The end.

Love from WeeGee xx