Jaci Dawn

A week ago, my husband and I celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary. It wasn’t much, just a quiet time together, watching a movie. I didn’t spend much time on social media, just curled up in my recliner and enjoyed the time with my best friend. Went to bed, slept, and woke up to the alarm.

And a good-bye message from a dear friend who felt I had intentionally slighted her by not clicking on the “like” button next to her comment under my anniversary video, even though I had clicked “like” on all the other well wishes. I couldn’t even go and look to see if I had actually done the deed: she was already gone. I felt like I had been punched in the chest: all my air expelled. Surely, I hadn’t missed her comment? Surely she didn’t believe I’d done so intentionally?

I apologized, explained it was merely a misunderstanding, an accident. I didn’t get the impression she believed me, but I followed up with an email and a hand-written card. I don’t expect her to ask me to be her friend again, not on social media. Perhaps, she felt as if all the air in her lungs had been expelled when she saw that missing little blue “thumbs up”. Certainly she felt it was rude of me, and had I done it intentionally, I’d have to agree.

There may still be a letter from her as we live some distance apart, and we have always communicated better on paper. But in the meantime, I have been mourning the loss of someone I have loved very dearly. It comes at a time when all the loss of the past 22 years is hitting me. It comes exactly a year after another long-time friend blocked me in a mess of taunts that I still haven’t figured out and probably never will.

(To be fair, I once unfriended someone in the heat of an online spat. Shortly after, I came to my senses and messaged her that I was an ass, and to please forgive me for being an ass, and we could remain un-friends. She forgave, and we remain unfriends. It was my bad.)

When it isn’t your bad, when you have no idea you’ve brought offense, when you haven’t done what the accuser says you’ve done (or at least, you are certain you clicked all the little blue thumbs, so how could you have missed that one?)… How do you recover that lost trust? The deep friendship you thought you shared?

For me, my very inner worth was shattered. Oh, last year, I could shrug that off. That person had clearly an agenda of hate and anger, and she got the expected result: the severing of our relationship. But this year, the friend was – is – someone I admire, and the insult, while unintentional, must surely have devastated her as much as it did me. Only I am confused as to how it happened. Or why.

I texted my youngest last night about Father’s Day and got a reply from a stranger who now has the last known phone number I had for my girl. I just saw her in February, so I know the phone number was right. I didn’t misdial. She has closed all her social media accounts and has no online presence. No forwarding phone number. I sort of know where she was living in February, because I’ve been to her apartment several times (but I don’t know the actual number – I’ve always met her on the street and been escorted back to the apartment).

So, taken with the loss of a friendship (I’m actually hoping I’ll still get a letter telling me that it’s just on social media that we can’t be friends), the anniversary of the last such fiasco, the anniversary of my mother’s passing (Saturday, June 17th, 1995. It will be 22 years on Saturday, June 17th, 2017), and discovering my youngest has disconnected herself from us – I was an emotional mess the past week, and most of today.

I write this knowing that it may all be sorted out by the end of next week, and the world will not seem such a cruel and confusing place. A friend of a friend may have my youngest’s current phone number, and we’ll connect. She’ll be all right, just couldn’t retrieve all her old phone numbers. I may get a letter from my dear friend explaining that she felt hurt and confused, but after reading my heartfelt apology, she realized it was an accident (that I didn’t even know I made). The heart-rending anniversary of my very best friend’s death will have passed, and my emotions will balance back out. I’ll be able to breathe again.

The voices of recrimination, despair, and self-hate will retreat to a corner in my head, and I will be able to resume my quest to become God’s dream of me; to be the woman I was created to be; to embrace the worth in my soul that God wants me to see. Today, I am just thankful for two older kids who talked me off the ledge, and who reminded me that I can’t take on “someone else’s problem.”

To wrap this up, I read this the other day about offenses: “A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.” Proverbs 19.11

I’m praying for wisdom right now.