A Friend. Indeed.

Just after Thanksgiving I began to suspect that I had been dumped out of a decade-long friendship. No explanation; no fight or conflict leading up to it. Just a matter of a dwindling of forwarded emails; a lack of response to my text messages; a failure to return phone calls; and one ignored Christmas card. It was, quite simply, just over.

If I'm to be honest about the quality of the friendship itself, it had gone toxic some time before our break-up, and instinct told me to take a deep breath and be thankful for small favors. The regular give-and-take that I had always understood friendship to be had become, for me in this particular relationship, a give-and-give-some-more.

For so many years I felt I had been doing this other person a favor with the gift of my friendship. I'd stuck with her through her never-ending dramas and drunken battles with an abusive (and equally-alcoholic) husband. I believed her when she told me that she would be lost without me, so I stayed and I endured, for the sake of my friend.

Frequently, against my better judgment and the caution of my husband, I did everything I could do to help my friend through her constant trials. I was in the friendship for her, or so I told myself (and everyone else who asked about the odd pairing the two of us made). She needed me, and in spite of the dread I sometimes felt when her name showed up on the caller ID, I was there for her.

I had always figured (and thought about more often than I cared to admit, I guess) that when the time came to cut it off (because surely in a go-nowhere situation such as that, the time would come), I would be the one doing the cutting. I was often resentful of the role I'd been cast in the never-ending drama that was our friendship, and I frequently imagined the day I would be free of the responsibility of it all.

Last week I got an email from the friend that had so clearly dumped me. It was a casual "Hey, I lost your number! I'm getting married next week and would love it if you could come" message. It didn't offer an apology or much of an explanation for the sudden departure from ten years of near-daily contact. I have not responded to the email, and I'm not entirely sure if I will. I don't know what I'm supposed to say to this person I thought I knew so well, and who I thought (perhaps a bit in vain) should be grateful for the attention I gave.

The very idea of friendship has become an interesting concept for me to ponder. What does it mean to me? And does it mean the same thing to me, generally speaking, that it means to other people? What do I expect from the people I call friends, and if they don't live up to those expectations, is that a statement about them? Or about me?

And, maybe most importantly, am I living up to the expectations my friends have of me?