Running Into An Ex-BFF (or How I Survived My Pedicure)

Yesterday, I went with my friend Stacia to go get a pedicure and eyebrow waxing in preparation for Thanksgiving. I’ve been going to the same nail salon since I moved to LA over 11 years ago, and I was excited to bring Stacia there for the first time.

As we were pulling in to the parking lot, I was telling her about my ex-best friend and how we used to always go to this nail salon together. I was friends with this person for 8 years, from freshman year at LMU until about 3 years ago (our friendship ended on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 2009). To this day, I’m not exactly sure why our friendship ended. But to be honest, looking back now, I feel like we had outgrown our friendship.

For the last 3 years, I’ve never seen my ex-best friend. The people who work at the nail salon always mention how we miss each other by a few hours a lot of times. But as I was parking, I noticed my ex-best friend. She was getting out of the car, so I could only assume that she was going into the nail salon. I was pretty upset to know that I was putting myself into an uncomfortable situation, but I took a deep breath and went inside.

As we were picking our colors, we were inches away from my ex-best friend and her mom, and either they didn’t notice us or they chose to ignore us. I didn’t say anything. But as we were getting seated in our pedicure chairs, my ex-best friend’s mom saw me and came over to say hello and give me a hug. I was polite and honestly was happy to see her. But I didn’t ask about my ex-best friend or anything. We all went back to our chairs, and that was the end of our interaction.

I held it together during the pedicure, but I did wait until my ex-best friend and her mom left the salon before I got up to leave. But once I was in my car, I broke down. I surprised myself by crying, I thought that I wouldn’t care if I saw her again. But what it came down to was the fact that my ex-best friend didn’t even acknowledge me. I’m sure her mom mentioned that she just said hello to me so she had to know that I was there. And I know that I was also in the wrong for not saying anything.

It’s just so sad that there is nothing left there. This was my best friend for so long. She knew so much about me. We had a tradition that we could only pick pedicure colors that had cute names, and I still do that today (the color I got yesterday is called “Leading Lady” and is a red sparkly color). She is the person who was there when I met t-shirt guy (a story for another blog).

I have to focus on not what was lost, but who I have become since then. I’ve become a much more confident person. I have made so many friends that push me to want to be a better person. I have come clean about my credit card debt and my eating disorder (I never was fully honest with my ex-best friend about either). I’m so much happier now than I was then. And I really do hope that my ex-best friend is too.

And if she is reading this (which I doubt, but you never know), I’m sorry our friendship ended. But I hope that you agree with me now that it was for the best. And I’m sorry I didn’t say hi to you at the nail salon. I was so shocked to see you, and only thought more about it once I was out of the situation. But I do hope that you are happy. And I hope that maybe next time that we run into each other, one of us will have the courage and guts to say hello and not make it as awkward of a situation as yesterday was.

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