Hej searchinggirl,
No easy anwser to this one. Mutual respect is just about the only way to make a go of it. You both express your desire to maintain a friendship, but there would have to be "rules", no discussing of religion or bringing it into the conversation to make the other person feel uncomfortable. My dear friend stopped as a witness 14 years before I did. I wanted to keep her as a friend and I did. She was fantastic and NEVER expressed critic of my beliefs. I in return never gave her a guilt trip, we kept to our friendship through thick and thin. She was overjoyed two years ago when I told her I was leaving the JWs for good.
So ask your friend straight out if she wants to continue the friendship on those terms. If the anwser is no, then I dont see any other way than for you both to part for the time being. When you have "studied" as you have for eight months you are well on your way to having the witness mindset imprinted on your lifestyle...that is not healthy and if you keep being exposed to it you will find yourself in a very uncomfortable place, as you even now are experiencing.
Hope you can keep your friend, I know how you feel. Now I am out I have 2 friends I try to keep contact with. I do not respond to any information about the meetings , mags, assemblies etc, other than saying I hope they had a nice time. I then change the subject to something else, family, work, food anything. I also make sure I talk about how happy I am and busy (I do a lot of volunteer work now). I hope you can try this and see if it works for you.
Kind regards
Chicken little