'Best friends'. Thanks to you, my first reaction when I hear that phrase, is dread. Suffocating dread of people wanting something from me - my time, my advice, my space. I don’t want to, but ever since our friendship blew up in my face, I have dreaded being someone’s 'best friend' again.
We had been friends since forever by the time it all ended - in the middle of night in Cardiff, 2009.
But remember how it started? We were desk mates in the primary school back home in Estonia. As you recall, we did everything together - studying, skipping classes, giggling over boys, hitchhiking.
Then, high school ended and for the first time ever, we had to really think for ourselves and decide on our future paths, academically and otherwise. But, neither of us knew what we really desired to do.
I half-heartedly applied to uni for both English and Estonian philology, and to college for a Youth Work course. We both ended up there, liking the sound of 'youth' but you not so much the sound of 'work'. I actually liked the course, but you joined because I did.
Remember our practical assignment - to lead a youth camp - during the summer after the first year? You can’t. You were a no-show on the morning of. Then, a few weeks later, you applied to study dance in another city. Bang, whoosh, kapow!
But, time healed the wounds.
As you know, after my course finished, we both went to Denmark for a year. We did initially go to separate folk schools, your's with a more dance-focused theme, mine with youth work at its core, yet you did not really fit in at yours, so you joined mine a week after starting. You didn’t give your school a proper chance, did you…
It was OK, I told myself. Yet, often, my blood would boil with the anger and frustration I had kept in for a long time. I bit my tongue, not wanting to rock the boat.
You were an energy thief, you see. An egoistic, all-encompassing, needy energy thief. Suddenly I wasn’t mingling with the other students in the massive communal living room anymore. No, I was doing whatever you wanted to do. Which was not to socialise.
I guess nowadays what you had would be labelled 'social anxiety'. But back then it was just annoying. It was annoying, because I was trapped with you.
You did leave the school though, going back to Estonia after the Christmas break.
That second half of my year was amazing. I mingled, made new friends, I even lost my virginity, because I wasn’t shackled with the constant ties of being someone’s 'best friend', attending to your every whim.
Then, me and my sister moved to Bristol, UK. And you followed a few months later, expecting me to support you. I helped you with the documents, with accommodation, even getting you a job in the same shop we worked at. Did you realise how much we did for you?
I doubt that.
You often changed your mind about the future, so you moved back to Estonia again a few months later. We remained friendly, didn’t we, though the geographical distance extended the gap that was already forming between us. Emails did not achieve what instant messaging and video calls would just a few years later.
Then, my sister and I decided to spread our wings further and move to Cardiff, Wales. It wasn’t until almost another year later, after we’d moved from our shared accommodations into a two-bed rental, that you wanted a piece of that pie again and came to live with us.
You struggled finding work – you were quite picky – so you were often just at home, desperate for conversation me and my sister struggled to give you. It was unfortunate that what you wanted the most was exactly what we wanted the least. But we were so tired.
You lasted about two months, unsurprisingly. Then we had a fight, fuelled by alcohol and years of anger kept inside, and you left. Right in the middle of the night.
That was the night our friendship ended.
I tried to contact you, do you recall? I was angry, so angry, but I was also worried. I tried to get in touch to see if you were safe. You gave me nothing.
Then, you emailed me – remind me if this was a few months or a year later – just to say 'thank you for the lesson I can learn from'. What was I supposed to do with that?
We didn’t speak properly again until about fifteen years later, a few years ago now, even though I had tried to reach out to you during moments of love and understanding. You were not ready then.
It was nice of you to message me on Instagram when you finally were ready, and for us to have that coffee when I visited from Scotland, my home for the last 16 years.
You have never tainted Scotland for me. You have never set foot on this soil. I hope you never will.
I guess what I want to say is this. Even though your friendship did not offer me what I needed, and was much more about what you needed instead, it made me realise who I wanted to be in my life.
I wanted to be sociable.
I wanted to be free to form friendly ties with whomever I wanted to.
I wanted to be the main character.
Hey, everything happens for a reason, isn’t that what they say?
I think you happened to me, so I would start putting myself first for a change.
So for that, Kim, thank you.