Over the past 15 months, I became close to two girls, “Abby” and “Jenna.” We were like the Three Musketeers, e-mailing each other every single day, writing letters, exchanging phone numbers, always encouraging each other.

About a month ago Abby started to grow distant and then suddenly started to ignore both me and Jenna with absolutely no explanation at all. Jenna and I tried repeatedly to ask for an explanation but received nothing. It seems Abby replaced the two of us with a group of cooler and more popular girls.

That’s not my big problem. It hurts, but it’s happened to me before and I’m trying to move on with relative success. However, Jenna is having a much worse time.

Anyway, it’s gotten to the point where this whole Abby disaster has made things really bad for Jenna. I finally convinced her to talk to her parents about seeing a counselor and she’s now meeting with one, I guess about once a month.

I’m never going to leave Jenna. I truly love and care about her. I want her to be happy, but she’s obsessed with getting Abby back. All she does is talk about Abby.

I don’t understand why. Abby has shown zero interest in being friends even when I wrote her a letter as if the whole falling out thing was my fault. She ignored every single attempt at communication with us. It’s as if we never met.

So I’m really hurt right now by both Abby and Jenna. I’m hurt by Abby because I know I did nothing wrong to offend her, and she abandoned me when I was going through a hard time and needed someone to talk to.

But I’m hurt worse by Jenna because I stay up until 1 a.m. every single night talking to her until she goes to bed. I encourage her, I pray for her, I talk to her about whatever she needs or wants to talk about. And all she cares about is Abby.

Bronwyn

Bronwyn, Alexander Graham Bell said, “We often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open.”

Patterns of thought can be circular, like water going down a drain. When that happens what we need is less thought and more action. Jenna needs something to work on and something to achieve.

How do you find friends? Usually through a shared something. It can be your neighborhood, school, work, hobby group, basketball practice, volunteer work or clarinet lessons. Anything. You can meet someone with shared interests in all those places and gain knowledge and self-esteem through improving yourself.

The better person you are, the more diverse and interesting, the more you are attractive to others. Ask, what would it take for me to be one of those people who walks into a room and lights it up? Perhaps you will never quite become that person, but asking the question points you in the right direction.

Every moment spent contemplating the one who moved on is a waste. Nothing you or Jenna can do will change Abby. She is neither a bird in a cage nor an indentured servant. What has Abby done? Taken her life in her hands and steered it in another direction with resolve.

Life always changes, especially when we are young. Wait until one of you has a boyfriend. That event changes everything, when the main thing on a girl’s mind is a boy.

First and foremost remember it is your life to live. If you are not living it and directing it, then you have given it to others. That’s how older people sometimes ask themselves, how did I get here and not where I wanted to be?

Jenna can’t relive the glory days when you were all friends. That’s looking at the closed door when so many others are open.

Wayne & Tamara