The earliest friendship I can remember ended when I was 4. Katie B. Our families lived down the street from each other in Sacramento. Our families had been close for two generations. My mom had been friends with all the B brothers, growing up with them in Palo Alto in the 50s. They had children which mirrored ours in age. Katie was my double. She had white blonde hair, and had a huge smile. Honestly, I don't remember have many distinct memories of our friendship, but I remember two things clearly. First, I remember sitting on the steps outside our side door, eating homemade orange juice Popsicles and laughing together in the hot sun. The second was just how happy I was when I knew I was going to have a play date with her.
Then one day, it was over. As we were finishing our play date, my mom said something like, "Ok, let's give Katie a big good-bye. She's moving, so this is the last time she'll be coming over." I can't say that as a 4 year old I can remember a sense of loss at the time. At that point, the concept of time and never hadn't really sunk in yet, so I the finality of that statement didn't create a lasting impression. But what I do remember is wanting to have more of those times of eating Popsicles on the steps. I never had to worry about being picked on with Katie (a fact of life, as the youngest of 5 children), or put down in order to raise herself up (which happened far too often with my particular set of childhood 'friends').
Over the next few years, this pattern of repeated multiple time. A stream of happy moments of friendship, cut off by the decision of the friends' parents to move.
Alex lived in the house behind us. Our parents had a section of our shared fence cut out, replaced by a gate which made it easier to visit each other. That gate was rarely used. Just for a year. After his sixth birthday, it was time to say goodbye. 30 years later, and the gate is still there, though barely visible through the overgrowth. It sits there unused, except to remind me of another lost friend on my visits to my parents' house.
Usually when something bad happens to you repeatedly, you kind of get
used to it, and learn to adjust. Normally, the emotional response is
worst the first time it happens, and then coping mechanisms kick in on
subsequent occasions. That wasn't the case for me for friends who moved.
I barely noticed Katie's move. When Alex moved, it hit a little harder. Then Bryan in second grade. Adam, Eric, John, James. They began to hurt, and hurt bad. A pattern was established in my mind, and each time it happened again, it brought up the pain of the previous ones. It compounded and got worse.
When I was 10, we had a German exchange student, Florian, stay with us for a semester. He was 16, the same age as my older brother. He was supposed to be my brother's friend -- after all my brother would stay with his family later in the year. But the thing is, I think I spent more time with him than he did when he was at our house. My brother was busy all the time with sports, activities, and studying. Too busy to play games with Florian. Too busy to play laser tag with him. Too busy to play endlessly on the Atari with him. Too busy to double bounce him on our backward trampoline, or admire his amazing artwork.
Over the fall months, I became good friends with Florian. His Euro tendencies to not shower or change clothes or do his hair like Val Kilmer didn't bother me. Not in the slightest. Florian brought a lightness to a household in serious need of a chill pill. He would mock my intense focus on beating the high score on video games. When I did get the high score, he would quickly take over the keyboard and type in and say "BigMac" in his euro manner that I just found hilarious.
It all ended so quickly. With this one, I knew it was going to end. Intellectually, there were no surprises. He was due to go home end of January, and he went home end of January. I don't think Florian really considered me that much of a friend. I'm not sure I would have ever listed him as a friend. But something about this one just made me crack. I cried. No, I bawled. No one understood it. They all looked at me like I was having a heart attack or something. So I just ran to the bathroom and shut the door. I didn't come out for dinner, and I didn't come out to go to bed. Eventually I fell asleep on the floor, exhausted by my mourning.
Years later, I can see that these experiences have had a devastating effect on my ability to develop strong relationships. Friendship to me meant eventual pain.