letting go of a fondly remembered and formative past

I recently came to the hard realization that the person who I had considered my dearest, closest friend for the past 15 years is no longer my friend and in fact, maybe hadn't been my friend for quite sometime. The wakeup call came to me in the form of a heartfelt letter outlining his increasingly general negative impression of me and a set of grievances, one large and most others of lesser consequence, but most of which I concede were true in whole or part at one time or another. Whether my transition played any central role in this decision on his part I could not definitively say, but I doubt it. He was the very first person who knew my former male self that I shared my secret with and he was, to my mind, completely supportive.

But I had finally noticed this slowly accumulated decline in the friendship recently and a letter on my part inquiring about this circumstance resulted in the said response from my friend described above. I cried harder and longer than I ever have before in my life and then went through an accelerated grieving process where I moped about my house in a daze for several days. But I finally came out of this fog and truth be told, feel a little stronger because of it.

I was of course extremely hurt that this friend kept his silence and did not broach his growing dissatisfaction with me until things were beyond repair. Instead he increasingly declined my offers for get togethers and cooled his once warm interactions with me ever so subtly. I naively persevered in the hope that things hadn't changed and told myself that these slights were just the result of him being a successful, busy, self-employed guy. His silence still stings me when I let myself think of it, although I think that perhaps he did not think how such inaction had been affecting me.

At first, I felt that the whole thing was entirely my fault and that the friendship could be saved by a complete mea culpa on my part. And certainly I bear at least half the blame for this state of affairs. On reflection though, I think a good portion of my interactions with this friend, especially the last few years, consisted of me trying to prove myself to him; that I was worthy of his friendship and time. He never asked for this reaction on my part, but I did sometimes feel like he viewed my company as a persistent backup plan; someone who would join him in his own endeavors when no one else was available, but who increasingly begged off when asked to join mine. Perhaps even then I subconsciously sensed his pull-back and tried to make up for it in my own gangly, misguided and socially-inept way, even though such thoughts never entered my conscious mind. I've since come to the conclusion that it really is over; that the best thing for both of us would be for me to let these fondly remembered and formative years of friendship go and part ways as amicably as possible given current circumstances.

It is not an easy thing to accept that such a large portion of my past has somehow, and to no one's blame in the end but mine, been tarnished. Some may read this and say I am obviously harboring some bitterness over these events - they may be right. It's not easy being summarily rejected by those you love, especially someone as rejection-conscious as me. But I've been blessed compared to most transgendered individuals in that I have the strong support of my family and a small group of close friends. And for those people in my life who continue to put up with me I am everyday thankful.

Let me just finish by stating that my reason for posting about these obviously still open wounds is in an effort to heal myself; to come to grips with my conflicted feelings and to move on with my life. So I ask that if you comment on this post, please refrain from denigrating my former friend any more than I already justly or unjustly have.