watching it crumble

Broken relationships have been a recurring theme for me recently and I've spent a lot of time listening to two legendary albums that address it: Dylan's Blood On The Tracks and U2's Achtung Baby!. From afar I've had to watch the breakdown in the marriage of two dear friends, the first such of any of my peers with whom I am close, and though I'm geographically distant from them, I'm amazed at the impact it has had on me. Empathy and frustration have been constant and these feelings have grown even more acute with the dissolution of two of the most important friendships in my life, ones that (I thought) had history and deep roots.

In both cases I have no choice but to sit and watch it all unravel before me, despite my striving to right the ship and salvage things; so far, all my efforts have been for naught. I'm not used to a friendship going sour, let alone two friendships, let alone two of my closest friendships. I have always thought that one of the things I engage in really well is friendship: I invest a lot of time and energy, I keep in contact with people, and I try to affirm for my friends just how much the relationship means to me. Perhaps the most difficult thing about these recent experiences is that I've literally spent hours painstakingly poring over what went wrong, what I could have said or done differently, and thus why two of my closest friends have inexplicably broken contact with me, yet, I'm no closer to figuring it out than I was months ago--I'm pretty gutted. If I have in any way done something to offend, I'd happily admit my mistake a 100 times over and apologize, but when you can't even ask the other person, it makes it impossible. My only real positive from this experience is that it has helped me to focus on the relationships in my life that are going well and to ensure that I don't take those for granted.

You grow so used this happening everywhere that you become desensitized to it because it's viewed as just a part of life. Then, like anything, when it touches you or someone you love it changes everything. Because there has been a general absence of this in my life, I sure feel more for people who have struggled with losing people for whom they care deeply.