Unsent

Dear X:

It's been like a year and a half since we last spoke. I can't believe it, can you? Are you glad? Do you miss me? Are you angry? Or sad? Both? Neither?

As for me, I'm both. I think about you pretty much every day. I miss our friendship terribly. When I think about how your kids are almost two and they don't know who I am it makes me very very sad. I stood by you through your difficult journey to get those kids, and now I feel like I'm being cheated out of the final reward. This isn't how it was supposed to happen. I was supposed to be there. Buy them toys that annoy their parents, give them too much candy, teach them to say things they shouldn't say just for the entertainment factor. But somehow we ended up here in this awful place.

I am still angry. And I guess that anger is overriding my sadness or else I would have reached out to you by now. I may not have said the right words, and I may have over reacted, but I had a real reason to be angry that night. I was frustrated with my situation having just spent another freaking Christmas without a child, while in the middle of my third and final cycle which wasn't looking promising. I had alot of shit going on in my head and I was trying very hard to keep it all in. I know you were busy and life wasn't all wine and roses for you then either, but I felt abandoned during what was becoming the worst time of my life - having to finally accept pregnancy would never happen. Abandoned by someone who knew FIRST HAND how hard it all was to deal with, just when I needed her most. I guess you could say I abandoned you as well, you weren't having an easy time of it either, but dammit, I still say that I would have killed to have your problems at that point, and that is the part I just cannot get over.

I thought that somehow things would blow over...expecting our husbands to see the ridiculousness of all of it - but apparently they didn't have the energy (or the balls, take your pick) to get involved. I suppose it got worse when I didn't acknowledge your nephew being born - but honest to God I didn't even know until many weeks later, and at that point I felt like an idiot. I saw your cousin on the train, which was horribly awkward because I wasn't sure what she knew or how she felt. I said I would email but I didn't. My biggest regret in this whole thing (more than even my choice of words that night) is that I didn't at least send your sister a card.

So, I think you got back at me by not acknowledging the major incident that occurred in my life right after that, and honestly, that's where you lost my husband. He can't understand how our stupid fight didn't go right out the window when you heard the news, and how you didn't send some kind of acknowledgement of what I was going through. Funny, that part doesn't bother me so much, I think because I feel it's a trade off about your nephew. But that made him very angry. I think its the reason he didn't acknowledge your husband's email about our 10 year wedding anniversary. Was that an attempt to open the door to reconciliation? I secretly hoped so. I'm not sure how or if he responded, he won't talk to me about it so I stopped asking.

Several months ago he ran into an old mutual friend of ours. Even though you and she had stopped talking to each other since your pregnancy, she knew about our adoption indirectly through you. She asked him to have me call her to get together since we hadn't seen each other in such a long whille. It may surprise you to know that I won't do it...she will always be your friend first, and if you two still aren't speaking I think it would be a betrayal to you for me to talk to her now. Seems ridiculous under the current circumstances, but something won't let me do it. He brought the baby to see her though, did you know that? Did it bother you?

There have been many funny things that I wished I could share with you...I've played imaginary conversations in my head of the jokes we would make about stuff that has happened. The biggest one of course being that our old friend "Hat" is pregnant. Oh how I wish I could talk to you about that...how you found out, how you reacted, how everyone must be going nuts over it. If we ever speak again, I've got about 16 hours of material on it.

Despite my overriding anger, I do hope that somehow we can get back some part of what we lost. If I had my way, circumstances would arrange themselves so that we would get together without either one of us having to make the first move - some kind of spontaneous accidental encounter. I'm sure we both have alot to say to each other - there must be parts of this that I can't understand because I am too blinded by my own feelings. Or who knows - maybe you are okay with having this friendship end - you've always had alot of people around you, and didn't necessarily need me. I wish I knew so I could get some kind of closure on this. Until then, I'll just continue to wonder how you feel and wait for an inevitable awkward encounter around town.

In any case, I hope you are well. I hope your family is happy and your kids are healthy. I hope you are thinking the same thing about me and mine.