My Event
The moment that everything changed
It was late 2018 when Julie walked into my CrossFit gym. A little over a year and a half since my divorce, and I will admit, I wasn’t at my best self at that time. Too many late nights at the bars, hanging out with the wrong people, and filling my silence with poor choices and numbing activities.
Julie had that look on her face that most do when first starting CrossFit…that look that says “what the hell am I getting myself into.” She was quiet and nervous and looked a little lost. And so I walked up to Julie and introduced myself.
That is how I met Julie. My best friend for the next 7 years.
My best friend that unexpectedly ghosted me after those 7 years.
Many of us have at least one “event” in our lives where there is the “me” before and the “me” after the event. It is the event where our world felt the most unstable, like it was about to crack open on us and swallow us whole. It is that moment in time when everything changed, your inner demons were at their loudest, your nervous system was in shambles, and your search for any relief began.
This is my “event”.
For the first time, I am telling my truth, documenting, and putting it out there. In future articles I will often refer to the “event”, but first, for myself, I wanted to write about it just this once.
After meeting Julie that first day, I encouraged her to go to a gym party that weekend to meet more people. She agreed and I introduced her to my friends and as the night went on and people trickled away, Julie and I kept talking until we were the only ones left.
And that’s when we shared. Stories that will remain between us, but these were deeper stories of ourselves. Things I rarely ever share, especially with someone new. And she did the same with me.
Julie and I were never in an intimate relationship, but we quickly became best friends. Our friendship mattered very much to me and as the months went by, then the years, we only grew closer to each other. I became close with Julie’s family and spent many holidays with them including the last 5 Christmases. Julie got to know my family and got a job for one of my kids at her company. She rescued her first dog, Pablo, and we raised little Pablo together (which was the best dog I ever met). We vacationed together often, meal prepped every week, went to the same class time at our gym 5 to 6 days a week.
She became my person. She was safety. She was home.
We did try dating others here and there, but the dating apps and the dating world can be so difficult and exhausting that both of us just found it easier with our friendship than to try and find a romantic partner.
Sounds wonderful doesn’t it?
But this is the real world and of course there were challenges. We had our problems like any friendship. But the most challenging for us was that we both knew we would eventually want to find a romantic partner and we both knew that wasn’t with each other. We were in different phases of life with Julie wanting to eventually have kids and I already had mine.
There was this undercurrent of fear that we didn’t even speak about, but it grew with each passing day. On occasion, we would talk about it quickly, knowing it would become a big change in our lives, but we were family, we would figure it out.
What will happen when one of us finds a romantic partner? How will our friendship look when this happens?
That’s what we convinced ourselves as we ignored the obvious and lived in the bubble of our friendship.
Until one day in late 2025, someone new walked into our gym class. He was in Julie’s phase of life. A part of me knew that this was a potential threat. I introduced myself, got to know him some and he seemed like a good guy. Fit, good job, well educated, and of course…he was single.
With his arrival, two parts of me were in an all-out battle:
“this is good for her, let her see where it goes”
vs.
“shit, this isn’t good. Things are going to change. How do I stop this??”
But I knew I couldn’t stop it. I knew I wouldn’t do that to Julie, and so I told her all the things she needed to hear, “Give him a chance. He seems like a good guy. If he asks you out, you should go”. Julie told me she didn’t want to date him, and I suspect her fear of the change in us kicked in. But I reassured her that we would be fine. “You should see where it goes.”
I told her these things, but my body and my brain and my entire being were saying the opposite. My body was saying, “This is bad. Julie is my safety net and if she is dating this guy, then I will be left behind.” My body shook. My heart was beating fast. I tried to hide my feelings as much as I could, but it was obvious. Especially with Julie who knew me so well.
And then the day finally came where he asked her out.
And she agreed.
We talked the night before the date and my entire system was on high alert. I still remember that moment so vividly. It was a Wednesday night, we just made dinner and were about to watch one of our shows (“Fallout,” which, given the situation, is an ironic title). We finally addressed the upcoming date. I admitted that I’m worried what this will do to our friendship. But one of the things I loved about Julie is that she knew how to make me feel safe. She told me:
“You are part of my family. You are my gym person. You are my person. You are my best friend. You are the father to Pablo. And my family loves you so much that you could never leave even if you tried to.”
My body relaxed. My fear subsided. I’m safe. I loved this about her. She gave me that safety.
Then the date happened.
And she has not talked to me since.
This was nearly 7 months ago as of this writing.
I never got any answer as to why she didn’t want to talk again. I gave her some space at the start so she could figure out her feelings for the new guy without me interrupting. I knew myself well enough that I wouldn’t be a very good friend at that moment as my body was reacting in ways I wasn’t sure I could control.
After a few days I texted to see how it went.
No reply.
I tried to reach out again, nothing.
I ran into her between classes at the gym (I had quit going to our class together as I felt we both needed space) and she avoided me giving me a quick “hi” before she ran off.
After a week of this, a mutual friend of ours told me that Julie did want to talk eventually and she would let me know when Julie was ready.
My body went into freeze state. I felt there was nothing I could do. If I push too hard, she may never talk.
And so I waited.
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After a month, I’m on a work trip and I got a message from our mutual friend that said, “can we talk?”.
I was in a meeting, so I told her to just text me.
What I received was this…
I spoke with Julie, and she told me that she never ever wants to talk with you again.
I read it quietly in that meeting, no longer paying one bit of attention to anything anyone said. I felt like my heart stopped. Nothing made sense to me. The world was dark. My heart was pounding. I ran to the bathroom to escape the meeting, and it took me 5 times to type out a simple sentence, “why, what happened?”
All I got was “she just wants to move forward.”
I read that text again: “She never ever wants to speak with you again”
That extra “ever” has stuck in my brain all these months. It wasn’t “I would prefer to not talk with Liam.” It wasn’t “I don’t want to talk with him.” It was “I never EVER want to talk with him again.”
And so I waited.
My body was no longer in a freeze state, it was fully frozen.
I didn’t know what to do.
Do I force her to talk? No, no, that will betray her wishes.
Do I get angry, yell at her, or talk badly about her? No no, I’m not trying to hurt her and I would hate myself if I did that.
I ran over question after question of “what do I do?” with no clear answer coming.
And so I waited.
With no idea what I was waiting for.
Did I want closure? Did I want to know why she refused to talk to me? Did I want her to reach out and apologize?
Until slowly that question became, “What did I do?”
The most hurtful question of all.
I turned it on myself. It had to be my fault, right? How could it not be my fault?
That question, “what did I do?” was answered by none other than my inner critic, Billy the Bully:
What did you think was going to happen? You showed her yourself and she got the hell away from you! People don’t just ghost their best friend of 7 years for no reason!! You know it was you! It is always you! This is why I keep telling you to never EVER show anyone the real you! You are a fucking piece of shit remember? She finally figured it out! Ran as fast as she could away from you. Case closed.
And so I waited.
That is how my journey of healing and self-discovery started.
We each have our “event” in our lives, but it is time for me to no longer wait.
I asked myself my first real question after the event.
What the hell do I do now?
