I'm not someone who likes disappointing even complete strangers.  When I disappoint people I truly care about, I am despondant, dejected, and generally pretty pissed off at myself.  And, as my life-partner puts it, I try to make it a "self-correcting mistake": that is, I try to figure out how to correct the mistake, and to prevent it from being made in the future.

However, with one of my very closest friends ever, I've disappointed her not once, but twice.  And I've not figured out how to correct it.   We've known each other a long time -- 23 years to be exact.  I lived with her one year -- we had nothing in common, and we became fast friends.  I was a graduate student (then, too!), and she was a nurse.  She was a Francophone from Ontario; I was an Anglophone from Quebec.  She lived and breathed culture; I was obsessed with the intellectual.  But we became fast friends anyway. 

There was a time, after we lived together, when we each were living with our respective partners; neither relationship survived, but the friendship did.  After a few years of rare and strained visits, we reconnected, and rebuilt our bond, and it seemed stronger than ever.  She had been my maid of honour at my first wedding (before that first estrangement) and then at my second (about six years ago).   She became close friends with others of my friends; the network was getting stronger and denser, and it meant a great deal to both of us.

But, then, I failed her.  She was struggling with a health care system that was betraying her as a worker, as a caregiver of her mother, as someone struggling with chronicly debilitating illnesses herself.  She ranted and raged against that betrayal, as she should.  For some reason, I could not just listen.   I had to stake out that territory I run for whenever someone condemns in a blanket fashion a whole group of people --in this case, doctors. 

Clearly, she knew more about doctors than I ever will; she was in a better position to judge, both professionally and personally.  But still, I felt the need to defend them from such a blanket of hatred hurled at them, obscuring their talents and contributions.  To this day, I don't know why I do that, but I know that after a time of people making gang declarations, I feel an irrepressible need to challenge their assumptions.

Now, a friend in pain and anguish doens't need an intellectual challenge to their rage.  I knew that.  But I did it anyway.  But while I apologized profusely for my insensitivity, I did it again, when the conversation followed the same path.  I had now disappointed her profoundly twice.

She has continued to struggle with these issues; she has been unable to work for months, and I've not spoken with her. I tried to connect with her once on short notice when we were to have a little time in Montreal, but we ended up talking to each other's answering machines.  I wanted to heal the wound, but I refrained, fearing that I'd become like Peter, and betray her three times in the same way on the same issue.

This all came rushing back to me, because today she phoned; she was in town, having spent a few days at a cottage with a mutual friend, and could we connect before she had to head back.  Well, of course we could!  And we did.   But it was a strained, and difficult, and somehow moderately healing visit.   She tried not to talk about how ill she's been.  I tried not to talk about anything that might lead us to a confrontation where I would be drawn again into my betrayal behaviour.  And we succeeded.

I still ponder what in me calls me into such hurtful behaviour.   And I still wonder what it will take for me to heal this rift between me and this wonderful old friend.  I have to believe it's possible, that it will happen.  It has before.  And since I have no way around this one, I'm trying hard to be patient so that we may both find our way through it.  There are no friends like old friends.

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