My Mumbling Thoughts

Helen is my best friend.

Hands down, my best friend in the whole world. Our relationship is borderline obsessive, I'm sure. I also like to think that I'm not on a one way street here, but that she too, feels the same way about me. If I were a man (or she were a man) or we were both lesbians, I'm more than positive we would be in a romantic relationship with each other. It's just how things are. It's how close we are.

I remember my first thoughts when I met her as well. I wrote about it up here, saying that I could see myself becoming good friends with her. We got on really well and she was the first person in the flat that I felt really close to. I also thought it was quite funny how similar we were even though we had never met each other and lived an ocean apart. I always said she was the English version of me (if I were responsible and put together) and I was the mental American version of her.

In the short time that we've known each other (a little over a year now), it feels like we've known each other for ages. I sometimes wonder how I've got on without her before now. While we are both independent women (and damn proud), we also do quite a bit of things together. We have sat up and talked to each other in the middle of the night on so many occasions I've lost count. We shop together, eat together, walk places together, dance together, drink together, laugh together, cry together...you catch my drift. And if I do go out without her, I generally get extremely drunk and emotional, and Helen is always the first person I cry out for, which is quite a compliment in my book.

Our relationship is just what every friendship should be like in my perfect world. I am completely comfortable around her. If we're sat in the same room and it's completely quiet, I don't feel weird or awkward. We don't need to fill the silence. Generally we're either cooking or sat on the computer, but I've never felt uncomfortable like one of us needs to say something. It just is. And it's cool.

Even over the past summer when we were separated until her and Jon came to visit me in VA, we still chatted almost every day. And if we weren't able to chat via msn, we could expect one or the other to have an email or facebook message waiting for us after we came home from work.

Getting back into the uni groove was a bit of a challenge for me this year. It didn't really take me that long to adjust living off campus and it did at the same time. I had thoughts and ideas of what I wanted, but actually putting those thoughts and ideas into action proved to be a lot more difficult then I had orginally thought. I wanted to expand my social circle and not go to every single uni event like before. I wanted to get out into Central a lot more and get a new crowd that wasn't so incestuous and everyone being in each other's business, knowing every little detail about everyone else's lives. I just wanted something a bit more new and fresh.

After a couple weeks into uni, I felt a slight shift in mine and Helen's friendship. Something was a bit off and funny. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I knew something had changed. And not for the better.

We weren't talking as much as we used to and now whenever there were silences, you could actually feel the silence. You felt the presence and I was beginning to think things that I had never thought before. I wasn't sure how to act and actually thought about what I would say to her before I even said it. I wondered if she thought differently of me now? Was she judging me? Did something happen and she was keeping it from me? Did I do something to offend her? Why all of a sudden was she going off and doing her own thing? She seemed so much more secretive and I wasn't sure why. What had happened that we all of a sudden had this Weirdness*?

It bothered me a lot. I obsessed over it as if I would obsess over a man. I over analysed things that she did, the way that she said things, her body language as if she were constantly keeping something from me and I would find out by other ways of secret communication that she didn't realize she was doing. I mean, she had told me that she was feeling a bit off and not quite like herself, but she didn't exactly elaborate or give me much detail and that didn't seem right. Generally we would sit and have a three hour conversation about why she felt that way, what could be the possible source or reason as to why she was feeling that way and then we would try and think of a solution as to how to make the bad feeling go away.

We are quite thorough.

But this time it seemed as if she wanted to work through the problem herself, which was fine with me, but also a bit confusing. It concerned me and I wondered if this was the beginning to an end of a really good friendship. I had mental thoughts like, "oh well, all good things come to an end, don't they? This usually happens with you and your really good friendships with women. You do something, they get bored or fed up and then eventually drift away. Way to go you social retard."

Then one day, randomly, the Weirdness didn't seem to be there anymore. We were fine, having chats, having a bit of a laugh and carrying on as if nothing had happened in the first place. My paranoid thoughts were put to rest and I thought it was probably just a phase that some friendships go through and we had survived. All friends need a break from each other. Sometimes the break is a good thing and gives you time to appreciate your friendship. That is until Kate Nash came up.

Helen: "You don't want to go and see Kate Nash with me, do you?"

Me: "What? What are you talking about? Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"

Helen: "I don't know. I just figured you didn't want to go with me."

And the Weirdness was back.

Why would she say such a thing? Of course I wanted to go and see Kate Nash with her! I was really looking forward to it! I had been looking forward to it ever since she told me in the summer that she had bought the tickets. When did this thought enter her mind about me not wanting to see the brilliant Kate Nash? I didn't like that she thought this. This was not good. Not good at all.

I knew the conversation that needed to be had. We had briefly touched on the subject a couple of times (once when I was really drunk and emotional - standard), but never really in depth down to the roots like how we usually chat. We never really properly grabbed the bull by the horns, so to speak, and left both feeling much better about everything.

So I started to talk.

And she did as well.

Helen: "Well there has been a weirdness, you know?"

Me: "A weirdness? With what?"

Helen: "Between us."

So she had recognized it as well. I wasn't alone with my feelings. This made me feel slightly better.

It was a little strained getting the conversation going, but it quickly got a lot smoother and I learned that she was feeling the same way about me. Neither one of us really wanted to mention it at first or acknowledge the Weirdness, because in a way, that means that there's a problem, and we've never encountered anything like it in our friendship, ever. We don't have problems. What it came down to (after we chatted about it and combed through every last morsel of detail), is that we kept on missing each other throughout the past weeks; I'd either be at work, or she was at a lecture, or I had plans to go out with some co-workers, or she'd be seeing her friends in Kingston or Camden. We didn't really have time to sit down with each other like we used to and chat shit until the sun came up. Our Helen and Sam time had been cut in half without us noticing. After a while though, I thought she just didn't want to hang out with me and Helen thought that I wanted a new crowd completely, excluding her, which simply wasn't the case at all.

Our little paranoid minds went into overdrive and we imagined the worst case scenarios. What if we had a giant argument and fell out completely with each other? I scare Helen quite a bit as well when I'm angry, and it made her extra nervous that I may even punch her square in the face. Of course I never would, but in our mental worlds, you never know. Crazy things go down. We thought that we were bored of each other, or perhaps something that used to be funny and quirky was so absolutely annoying now that we couldn't even stand to be in the same room as the other person. You just never know.

Me: "Well, just because I've been going out with Paloma and such, doesn't mean I don't want to hang out with you anymore. I don't want you to think that you're being replaced or anything."

Helen" "No, I know that. I mean, you can have other friends. We can have an open relationship."

It was so funny. We both started laughing histerically. We really were a married couple. The air was finally clear and it was good to have a laugh and shake the Weirdness off for good this time. We're just as bad as each other and while we may have a lull or two every so often, I know that I can go and talk to Helen about anything. Even about the Weirdness.

*
weirdness:

noun
1. strikingly out of the ordinary [syn: outlandishness]
2. A random phase that two good friends can go through whenever they don't spend enough time with each other.