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Someone help me, please. I am earwormed with Wham!'s "Careless Whisper."

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Here is something I have come to realize that I am grateful for: that I was not a famous person at the age of 17. Because all of the really stooopid things I said at 17 are not syndicated to celebrity gossip websites around the world and recorded for posterity.

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I have a friend with whom I've sort of lost touch. It was something I almost wished for at one time, but now that it's happening, I feel guilt for allowing it to happen.

Here is why I wished for it: she's very blunt and when I've been with her, I've often heard things I was not ready to hear. Also, she was a big part of a very bad period in my life, and being with her reminds me of it.

Here is why I feel guilt: neither of those things is her fault.

The last time I talked to her was right after I got engaged. I called to tell her, and our conversation went something like this: introductory "what's up"s, engagement announcement, "cool," climbingclimbingclimbing, mention of people we used to climb with, climbingclimbingclimbing, tendon injury causing frustrating lack of climbing, plans for future climbing, "great talking to you," concluding "see ya"s.

Last year at this time, we sent out Christmas cards with "Save the Date" letters to the family and handful of friends we planned to invite to our wedding. She never acknowledged receiving hers. In March, we sent out the actual wedding invitations. Again, she didn't respond. This surprised me somewhat�I'm not at all surprised she'd blow off a card or letter, but a wedding invitation is a bit� more, somehow. And the fact that she didn't respond in any way was a bit of a slap in the face. I have no reason to think I did anything wrong, and I suspect that it was just an oversight on her part, but hey. That's a pretty freakin' big oversight, and I admit I'm a little peeved and not sure I feel like being the bigger person and overlooking it. Maybe this is her way of letting the friendship fade, but I 'm not sure why she'd choose now to do it. [1] So what I'm really afraid of is that she just acted thoughtlessly and that's my excuse for letting the friendship go.

If that's true, I at least have in my defense the fact that it wasn't her first thoughtless act and wouldn't have been her last. I wasn't kidding about the phone conversation�the last time I saw her was also the last time I went climbing, and it totally convinced me that I might better leave the climbing in my past, unless I can find some friends who aren't as consumed by it as the ones I had before. We had fun all afternoon until the time came for me to leave, and then it ended like all of the bad afternoons I'd been climbing before�I want to leave now, and all I keep hearing is, "wait, there's one more problem I want to get on; it's only about 5 minutes further down the trail." In the past, I'd felt like I needed to be that consumed too, but having been away from it a while, it was incomprehensible to me. I was meeting other friends for dinner an hour away, and I wanted to hit the road. After an hour or so of "just one more," I realized that the people I was with just didn't want to hear me, so when we were briefly separated on the trail, I plumbed the depths of my memory to find my way back to the trail head, walked back to my car, left her a note and went on my way. I wasn't even angry, really; I just felt like I was finally leaving behind a piece of clothing that didn't really fit me.

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So now I sit here writing out Christmas cards and wondering if I'll decide to send her one. She won't send me one because she never does, but receiving one from me might inspire her to get in touch a few months down the road. I have to figure out how much I want that.

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[1] it's unlikely that my getting married had anything to do with it; she has plenty of other married friends, she's been married before herself, and as far as I know is still in a long-term committed relationship with someone, so I don't think it's a "you're getting married and we're going to have nothing in common anymore" thing.