Now that I think about it, I realize I’ve never lost a friendship that I genuinely wanted to keep before now.  Certain people have been culled from my life but I’d never intended to keep them in the first place.  And I might not be as close to all my friends as I once was but I know, from experience, that just a few words are enough to reestablish the connection.  The love remains.

I think of it as a web stretched across time zones, linking us no matter how much our lives change.

So I’m being launched onto this strange new landscape of having to cut ties to someone whose friendship I treasured.

When I consider someone a really good friend, I include them in my dreams for the future.  There’s an estate in Scotland, a castle and grounds, where I want to live.  I’ve moved all of my friends there, too.  While they may not always live there, or only visit, there is a room with their name on it.  I make them a part of the family I want to grow and include them in my definition of home.

For the first time since that habit began, I have to evict someone.  They can no longer be a part of my future, my family.  There is now a dark, empty room in the space in my mind that was reserved for hopeful thoughts.  I made a mistake and put someone in that room that I couldn’t trust.  It’s crushing.

The worst part is that I have to cut them out for doing something so completely, pointlessly cruel.  There was nothing to be gained and everything to be lost.  I don’t know why they made that decision.  I don’t know if it would make a difference if they explained it to me.  It can’t be forgiven.

They’ve already doubled down on the initial strike.  Apparently they found the idea that their actions could cause pain outrageous.  How dare they be expected to acknowledge other people’s feelings!

I already have a father like that.  I don’t need friends who think the same way.

I wonder now how I could have been so blind as to stumble into a relationship with someone who cares so little for their friends.  Who would only defend themselves in the face of the hurt they inflicted.

It’s all broken now.  They’ve killed a friendship and left me to grieve.  Probably they’ll think my reaction overkill or unreasonable.  But I can’t do anything else.

I have so few rules when it comes to my friends.  When you break the only one that really matters, there are no second chances.

The home I want to build is no longer open to you and neither is my heart.

Goodbye.