State of affairs 9-3-12

Wow.
Okay.
I really don't even know where to start. This weekend has been such an  insane mass of emotions that I that I haven't even bothered to sit down and sort through them. I'm now less than six weeks away from my wedding and while the marriage part doesn't make me the least bit nervous, the wedding itself is totally stressing me out.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about.
What I wanted to talk about was friends. Particularly, best friends. Specifically, people who were once your best friends and are now not even remotely part of your life.
Throughout high school I had three best friends. The same three best friends for the entirety of highschool, with a rotating cast of characters as our extended friendship circle. This continued through my first two years of college. These were the people who were there for me when I went through some of my hardest experiences. My first heart break, the everyday stress of school, even the death of my father. Depending on where I was in my life sometimes I would be closer to one friend than the other. In short, these three people pretty much were my entire life from the time I was fifteen until I was twenty. It's to the point that I have only a handful of memories from that time period that don't contain all three of them, much less at least one of them.
A little under three years ago I got engaged. I got engaged to the boy I had dated all through high school. The boy these friends knew. I stopped wanted to "go out". I'm not a very social person. I don't like crowds or staying up late or many of the things that normal twenty year olds are wont to do. The only reason I had been doing those things was because my relationship was in shambles and I had to do those things in order to not sit at home and be depressed. So once I was engaged I didn't want to do those things anymore. The problem was, that was really the only thing that those friends ever did. At first they always invited me. And I hated doing it, but I always said no. Then, they only invited me sometimes. I sensed that they were starting to resent me and so I talked to one of them- the one that I considered my best friend. The person who I had once been able to tell anything to. The person who I went with to get my first tattoo who had a matching one on her own hip. I told her that it wasn't that I didn't want to see them. It was that I didn't want to go to clubs and get drunk. She understood. She said that the only reason that was what they did was because of work schedules. She said she felt bad because she knew that I didn't like doing that stuff so they didn't always tell me because they knew I wouldn't want to go. I told her that anytime they did anything earlier than ten at night to tell me, because I would go. They were still my best friends and I still wanted to spend time with them.
Gradually, we stop texting and talking as much. Now they don't ever bother to invite me out. Then they start doing other stuff, like going to dinner or seeing movies, and don't bother to invite me to those either.
I talked to one friend about it, because I felt like she would be the only one who wouldn't get defensive and who would understand where I was coming from. Thankfully, she did. I had become really angry in that time frame and felt like they had just completely cut me out of their lives. Any time I did see them it felt awkward and forced because they were still best friends and I was suddenly an interloper. But this one friend, the one who I trusted to come to with my problems, assured me that this wasn't intentional. Everybody was just growing apart. She felt it to, but it wasn't just specifically me.
I didn't want to grow apart. These people had been such a big part of my life for so long that growing apart from them meant growing apart from all of those memories. I tried. I invited them to Vegas and paid for the hotel rooms. I made plans for us to spend New Years Eve together. I spent two full years trying and none of it made any difference. Once, when we all went to dinner, that friend that had once been my best friend (and who I had told would be my maid of honor when I first got engaged) got really drunk. She alluded to the fact that I thought I was better than them because I was engaged and I spent all my time at home. Which wasn't true but it's not like you can reason with a plastered person.
So that was the end of 2011. After New Years failed to change anything about the state of the friendship, I finally decided to give up. Except for that one friend who I had talked about it all with. Because she had started to feel the same way. She was in a stable relationship and ready to become an adult and it was driving a wedge between her and the other two.
So we got closer. When I decided in March of this year to get married I had to make a decision about my bridal party. Obviously those two people who had cut me out of their lives and didn't seem to give a shit about me didn't need to be in my bridal party. I needed people who were in my life to be in my bridal party. So, the one friend who I was still close to was part of my wedding but the other two weren't.
So all of that happened. Since then, there have been a few failed attempts for all of us to hang out. I felt awkward. I had never directly addressed the issue with them despite it having gone on for two and a half years, so I couldn't really explain to them why I hadn't invited them to be part of my wedding. But I did invite them to my shower and planned to invite them to the wedding. After all, they had been such a huge part of my life for so long. I understood that we had grown apart.
Fast forward to the weekend of my bridal shower. Three days ago. One of these friends  (not the one that had once been my best friend) decides to post the lyrics to Brand New's "Mixtape" on facebook and tag me with the caption "I'm calling you out, bro". The lyrics are I know that you're a sucker for anything acoustic but when I say let's keep in touch I really mean I wish that you'd grow up. This is the first song for your mixtape and it's short just like your temper. Somewhat golden like the afternoons we used to spend before you got too cool. 
Brand New was particularly important to all of us. In fact, Brand New was the band that had originally started the friendship between me and this friend. So, needless to say, I was pissed. I untagged myself in the picture, deleted her as a friend, and messaged her. Basically I said I was done. I had spent three years trying to chase after a friendship and I was tired of it. She could deal with whatever made up issues she had with me anyway she wanted to.
She responds that she had no issues with me. She had nothing with me. No friendship, no effort. Also... that I was blind to the whole situation.
There are a lot of things that I could have said. I could have said that this had been going on for three years and now all of a sudden it's an issue with her... yet somehow I was the blind one? I could have said that telling me to grow up by tagging me in a song on facebook was the exact definition of irony. I could have said that she was right. There was no effort because I had given up on the friendship over a year ago. But the whole thing made me realize something.
I didn't care.
I'm the type of person that always needs to have the last word. I need to win a fight. I don't know if its a self esteem issue or what, but I've always needed to be the one to have the last word. I didn't in this occasion. I just deleted the message and moved on with my life. The only thing that upset me about it was that by acting like a dick she had tainted all that time we had been friends. Now, instead of looking back on that time with happy memories I'll just see this asshole that I was friends with for so long.
Saturday night, the night before my bridal shower, the other friend- the one who had been my best friend- texts me. Keep in mind that the two of them are still incredibly close. And they're still close with the friend that is in my bridal party. She texts me to ask me if she should go to the shower (she had originally planned to go) which, you know, I get. Things would be awkward now. But then, she adds that she has some of the same concerns as the other friend. But she doesn't want it to seem like she's choosing sides.
But the sides have been chosen. The sides were chosen three years ago. And the fact that they want to chose one of the most important weekends of my life to deal with this proves how selfish and out of touch they are. So I tell her to do whatever she wants. I'm not going to deal with it. And I cry myself to sleep.

Now I've gotten about a day to get perspective on it but I don't really feel any different. I'll always miss the friendship that had gotten me through so many tough times, but there is zero emotion left in me to mourn it. I've literally spent three years crying and being upset about it. So now that all-of-a-sudden they give a shit I'm supposed to bow down to them? No. I'm moving on with my life. I'm moving on with the people that give a shit about me not just themselves. I'm starting the rest of my life with the boy I love with three amazing bridesmaids and amazing friends.

I'm done with the friendship. Done with all of it.