So, not too long ago I wrote about my unhappiness surrounding becoming an aunt. Though I talked about my fear of losing my dear brother as one of my closest friends, what I did not mention at the time is my fear of losing my sister-in-law too.
From the first time I met her, I loved her. She was someone I was thrilled to welcome into our family, a good companion for my brother, an instant friend to me -- and I don't make friends easily. Pretty much anything I said about my brother in that last post, I could say something similar in reference to her.
But now the facebook drama has begun... pictures of distended belly, unwanted updates about bodily functions or pregnancy side effects, attention-whoring photos and comments (although, yes, I realize that facebook is all about attention-whoring for all people in all areas of life!). For each offending story, I click "hide." Unfortunately, until I look at the image in front of me or read at least part of the update, I won't know if it needs to be hidden. By the time I view it, I cannot wash it out of my brain. I don't want to have to hide everything she posts; I don't want to lose her completely. But I wonder how long it will be, how much more I will have to stomach, before I feel compelled to cut her off.
It's not that that I want to dump her as a friend just because she is having a child, and it's not that I won't be able to see her or speak to her anymore. But I worry that she will never again be that same interesting person I loved. Someone said to me, "You make it sound as if someone died." Well, in a sense, this does resemble the death of one personality and the emergence of a new person who could be just a disfigured shadow of what she had been before -- the kind of person I would not have befriended if I had first met her in this state. How can I not mourn that loss?
