The Raven Haired Beauty

What hurts worse, when a guy splatters your heart all over the wall or when your best friend does it?

We tend to think of our heart being obliterated at the hands of a lover not a a friend. However, heart break is not solely designated to a person. It comes quite often. In this life people are meant to teach you lessons. Some stay and others are but visitors who leave footprints on our heart.

I am at a crossroads right now. I had what I thought was a great friendship with a woman I admired. When I met her we were freshman in college. I remember her with her long, gorgeous raven hair. She had a brown satchel she wore to the side. It had a picture of a man with bayonets and a covered face and black cap. I remember the picture well because all I could see were the eyes of this man.

I sat next to her in my history class and the rest is well oddly history. We became fast friends. She taught me about the man on her bag, Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional). She was my first encounter with a self-proclaimed Chicana. She opened my eyes to a world I only had a glimpse of. She was one of the driving forces in why I continued to pursue Chicano Studies.

She taught me a lot about spirituality and culture. She opened me up. I remember taking a remedial math class with her and few other friends. We all sucked at math. We all dreaded this class and knew that we absolutely had to pass it. i remember we all would meet up at my house and study for hours. Studying would turn into bonding and conversations and giggles and pizza runs.

We were close for about two years or so. She started seeing a guy and like all girls do became attached at the hip. I was happy for her. She slowly started disappearing. Her light started fading. I didn't really know what was going on. We eventually lost touch. My raven haired beauty of a friend disappeared. I didn't see her for a long time. I went on thinking I had done something wrong. She was supposed to take me home from class one day and she didn't show up. She didn't call or anything. I proceeded to call her to no avail. I never got an answer.

We would run into each other here and there. She always looked like she had something to tell m. I would get kind of excited to see her but always had to bring myself down to reality. We weren't really friends anymore, not the way we were.

It was a few years before I ever spoke to her again. I had my boyfriend. That relationship went sour. I had changed. I had grown. I had another college best friend. My life was going pretty ok. In fact this friend would be the reason we reunited one last time.

This long lost raven haired beauty came back into my life and we caught up on life and the tragedies in between. We kind of forgave the past. It was all a misunderstanding. She had had her heart broken and so had I. Again she was the one who understood me when no one else did. She understood why I kept walking down a broken road. She understood why I kept loving someone who had stopped loving me.

She held my hand all the time. I got into a horrible mess and she was there. She had gotten engaged. She was stressed and I was troubled. We met up for dinner and vented and shared our troubles and our dreams. We sat in her car. We cried and we screamed. I grabbed her hand. We held hands for a moment assuring each other we would always be there.

In the months that our lives changed I watched her transform before my eyes. She changed again. She became distant. She started to change her light. She started to disappear again before my eyes. The friend I knew became someone I didn't know at all. She treated me a way I never thought she would. I assume that we have had a falling out. I am sure if by my own fault or hers or both. All I know is the friend I thought was always going to be by my side has vanished.

My heart is broken once more and I have had no choice but to let go. Friends change, friends get married, they move, the grow apart. Still I cannot explain to my broken heart what happened to this raven haired beauty. I do not know what I did wrong. I have gotten to a point in my life where I can no longer chase after people who don't want to be here in the first place.

I do not know if she thinks I am a bad friend or I abandoned her. I've gone over it in my mind over and over again. I do not know if it is my stubborn foolish pride. I don't know what it is. All I know is that the same friend that vowed to always be by my side is no where to be found.

I still love her with all my heart. I still wish her all the happiness in the world because she truly deserves it. I just have decided to love me more. I have decided to care about me. Ironically she accused me of being willing to lose her friendship over some man who treated me like caca on his shoe. She accused me of not being willing to fight for our friendships. That woke me up. It made me change. I love my friends dearly and I love myself. Recalling that memory makes me wonder if she would fight for our friendship now.

I think about it all the time. I have nightmares. I feel like I don't matter. I think about trying but my disappointments of the past rear their ugly head. The ache of my broken heart throbs. For some reason I just can't risk the hurt. I feel that if someone truly wanted to be in their life they'd always be. Some people are not meant to be in our lives forever, they are merely travelers who leave footprints.

Raven haired beauty, I love you and wish you well wherever you are.