The Art of Losing Isn't Hard to Master

I may be in the midst of losing a dear friend. Or I may not be. I'm waiting to see which way it goes.

John, Tabs and Lucky in healthier days.

Since our split as a "couple" nearly a year ago, John and I have remained friends. We've done favors for one another: I loan him my car so he can get to Fayetteville, he watches my dogs while I'm at my folks for the weekend. We've gone on several memorable hikes (generally getting lost or separated or suffering some other form of inconvenience in the course thereof, including, but not limited to a back floorboard full of puppy poop). And we talk almost every day. This last seems to have been my undoing.

I'm not a telephone person. I don't generally choose to talk on the phone for any extended period of time, and I don't call to "check in" with people unless I have something specific to talk about. John's different: he likes to be in touch every day, and when you say "I'll call later" he expects you to mean it and follow through. Well, I failed to call on Tuesday afternoon when I said I would. I got home from an after-work beer and pizza fest with coworkers and crashed on the sofa. I woke up at quarter to midnight with a string of increasingly angry texts.

I don't really think the phone call was the issue. I think the very nature of our relationship is at issue. For me, being "just friends" is easy because I had moved on from a romantic relationship a year ago when I broke up. Not so for John. And on a couple of occasions the genie has gotten out of the bottle and he is angry at me. Furious, in fact, and hateful.

At Hawksbill Crag this spring.

This time may be the last, and I'm heartsick. He has been my best friend here in Arkansas for three years. He and I share some things that are special just to us, and when I think of going for a day on the river or taking the dogs for a run, he's the one I think of coming with me. But I may have been selfish in taking this comaraderie for granted. I think it has been more difficult for him than I realized.

I don't make friends very easily. Some people who know me on a superficial social level would be shocked to hear me say that because of my "hail fellow well met" front for social situations. I get very animated and "entertaining" when I'm uncomfortable, and I can get a group of people I don't know laughing and thinking I'm super friendly, when the opposite is true. That blustery entertainer is like my alter ego who comes out to protect me from actually making contact with anyone. It works pretty well.

With John I have always been able to be who I really am--as jacked-up or fearful or goofy or angry as I am at that moment--and he accepts it with an indulgent smile. Now I'm at a risk of losing that kindness and friendship forever. And I don't know what I can do to prevent it.

I can't go back to the way we were because my feelings changed. I didn't ask them to change. They just did. And I don't know if he can go forward. So I wait. And I hope it comes out okay.

One Art 

             by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; 

so many things seem filled with the intent 

to be lost that their loss is no disaster. 

 Lose something every day. Accept the fluster 

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. 

The art of losing isn’t hard to master. 

 Then practice losing farther, losing faster: 

places, and names, and where it was you meant 

 to travel. None of these will bring disaster. 

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or 

next-to-last, of three loved houses went. 

The art of losing isn’t hard to master. 

 I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, 

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. 

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. 

 —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture 

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident 

the art of losing’s not too hard to master 

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.