Jodie

In an excerpt of "I Thought You Loved Me," Mari Naomi's graphic Gen X memoir due out in May, they write about an ex-friend from their teens and 20s whose memory still haunts them in their late 40s.

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Here’s a little treat: A preview of writer and artist (and Oldster contributor) MariNaomi (they/them)’s forthcoming graphic memoir, I Thought You Loved Me, due out in May from Fieldmouse Press. In it, they ruminate on a friendship that ended many years ago, but which they are still grieving. A lot is being written these days about how difficult it can be to maintain old friendships into and through adulthood, and how we don’t really have a framework for talking about our grief when friendships end. This book is a nice addition to that necessary conversation.

It’s 2016. I’m a 42-year-old woman trying to get closure on a friendship that ended in my 20s. Why is this so hard?

At what point does an attempt at catharsis become self-flagellation?