Everyone has things in their life that they aren’t proud of, and I am no exception. In 2007, I reconnected with a girl who had been part of our circle of friends in high school. She hadn’t been someone I’d been particularly close with, but we’d liked each other well enough. I’d been much more reserved back then, and this girl was the opposite. When we all graduated and started going to different schools, she and I did not keep in touch.
When the Myspace craze erupted, I was addicted. We reconnected through there and realized we got along really well: we’d grown into people that liked each other’s company a lot. She was back in town, and we began hanging out weekly. We’d go to Two Rows on the Tollway every Wednesday for dollar beer night and yummy, greasy food. It soon turned into a big group thing, with anywhere from five to ten people there every week. The waiters mostly all knew us, we had a blast!
This girl had a bit of a complicated love life. She had a boyfriend that was living with her at her mom’s house. She also had a guy that she had known for a long time on the side. Her “booty call”, if you will. She cared more about him than her actual boyfriend, but for some reason she just refused to break up with her boyfriend. Since Jeremy, her guy-on-the-side, had been coming to Two Rows with her, we’d all gotten to know him. We felt sorry for him, too, because it was obvious he cared about her. He ended up leaving her because she wouldn’t pick him.
This is the part that isn’t so pretty. He and I had been texting and e-mailing right as they were breaking it off and at some point he asked me to go to dinner with him. My head was telling me “Girl Code” strictly forbade this, but I did it anyway. He and I hit it off and started seeing each other. The day I told my friend was awful. I’d been going back and forth about how I should say it, and of course Sara had been a great listener while I talked everything through about how to do it. I told her that this wasn’t something that was EVER in my nature to do, and yet I was doing it. I remember so well how much I stressed that I didn’t understand why I was doing this, but yet it just seemed right.
So I had my friend meet me in front of a Target in Garland. And when I told her what had been going on, she was devastated. She didn’t throw Girl Code in my face, she actually said she was worried about ME, that he was going to break my heart. I didn’t really ever talk to her again, she was too hurt and completely shut me out.
Jeremy and I were together for about a month and a half when he broke up with me via text message. That was Labor Day weekend in 2008, I was dog-sitting for a friend. I was crushed, and I was so angry with him for being such a coward. I decided I wasn’t going to sit around crying about it for long, I promptly renewed my eHarmony membership for three months.
Three months later, my account automatically renewed because I’d forgotten to cancel it in time. Nothing had come from being on again, and I was done with it for awhile. But now I was roped in for another three months. Two days later, I was matched with a guy named Andrew Dudek…and the rest, as they say, is history. =)
I wholeheartedly believe that this girl was brought back into my life to set these events in motion to bring me to Andrew. God’s plan. And I am more thankful to her than she will ever know. That doesn’t make hurting her any easier, though, and I wish it hadn’t been her. She refuses to allow me to apologize, and I can’t say that I blame her. It doesn’t stop me from trying, though. Every now and again I send her messages through Facebook (along with a friend request I know she’ll never accept) and try to explain that hurting her is something I wish didn’t have to happen. I can’t even imagine how I must sound to her, but I keep hoping against hope that someday, somehow she’ll understand.
Candy…I know you’ll probably never read this. But I think about you all the time, and I hope that someday you are able to forgive me. I know you feel betrayed and backstabbed and that you hate my guts. I deserve that. I know that you were reading Rick Warren’s book when everything fell apart in our friendship, and so I hope that one day you look back and see how what happened was all part of getting YOU onto the path you were meant to be on. Just like what happened was necessary, I believe, to bring me to Andrew, what happened will be meaningful (in a good way) to you when all is said and done. I pray that you are able to finally listen to my apology and forgive me on that day. I will never stop trying to reach out to you. I don’t regret what happened…how could I? My life now is everything I ever wanted it to be, Andrew is my “one.” What I regret is that it was you who had to get the raw end of that deal. I flashback to the day I told you about me and Jeremy every time I pass that Target. I have never stabbed a friend in the back like that, it is NOT who I am. But it was who I was that day, and it is something I’m not proud of. I hope eventually that you realize I am sincere when I say that I am sorry I hurt you, Candy. I’m so, so sorry.
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