and sometimes we find out that people we perhaps thought were friends (which to me implies there is give and take, forgiveness, acceptance etc) actually turn out not to be...or at least turn out not to have some of the qualities that we want in our friends...
soo for me, a key quality is forgiveness and right up there is acceptance (of course honesty goes without saying, which is why i haven't even mentioned it)...
sooo do you ever just need some time to yourself? sure, we all do - do you feel that the best way to achieve that if you've already made a commitment is to lie to the person??? well if you do, i doubt we'll be friends...for me, i like being able to be honest with my friends and hope that sometimes when i put myself first, they actually understand this...
well turns out, this isn't the case with all of my friends...see one of my friends, actually one of my oldest friends, tells me today (in a very snippy voicemail, responding to my text saying 'how are you, long time no speak, want to catch up, have a present for you from overseas' etc) that she is very annoyed with me as i have cancelled our last two get togethers and she doesn't want to deal with it now and not to contact her, and her grandmother died....
soooo quite a lot to deal with on a sunday morning when your health is as fragile as mine is...but i actually sat and thought about it and you know what? no matter how hard i try, i just don't feel guilty (why should i?) and I don't feel responsible for how 'annoyed' she obviously is with me...i feel sad that she is obviously hurting or disappointed or annoyed or all three...but i don't feel even remotely responsible or guilty....
see i have spent a lot of my life not putting myself first, and so i guess when i do, some of the people that have known me for years might find this difficult to grasp! perhaps that's all that is happening here - or maybe there's something else? who knows...
so this is a friend i've known for years, shared many life experiences with and have kept in touch with even though for much of our friendship we haven't lived in the same city...i accept her for who she is, although i have often worried about her as often when we talk i experience her as bitter and angry and really, not a happy person...she doesn't seem to want to listen to gently offered advice and honestly if i look back over the last few years, she probably does seem to 'carry around' some of the same crap she's been carrying around for years - and that's ok because it's her life and her choice - however, as her friend, i don't always have to choose to want to be in that with her...coz i'm basically a happy person - sure i've had a lot of crap to deal with in the last few years and sure i've had times of serious unhappiness in that time, but most people who know me (including me, and i know me REALLY well) know that i am happy and well adjusted, most of the times...
soooo i don't actually recall cancelling 2 things with her - i know for a fact i cancelled the last thing i had planned (a cup of tea, ironically if you read my last post) when i was staying at my parents (just the other week) and i did so because i felt so unwell - i am certain i told her that...of course i hadn't gone into any of the details of my ill health feeling that a text message wasn't really the right medium for that, so it's possible she has thought that me saying i wasn't up to it was merely a get out...but if she knew me that well, she'd know that i wouldn't do that - if i didn't feel like seeing her, i would find a gentle way to say so!!
soo imagine my surprise today when i get this voicemail - shocked is honestly how i felt! sad in a little way because this is someone i have been friends with for years....but honestly, whilst i am sad that she is hurting, and i'm very sad to hear that her grandmother died, i'm not overly sad about what might happen from here on in...
for me, if we are to continue to be friends, then i'd like to experience her as someone who is a bit more positive and whilst i know my opening comment was about acceptance - i could accept that she wasn't as positive as i might like in my friends, but i also like in my friends people who are willing to take accountability for themsleves and their lives and so maybe this is one of those seminal moments in our friendship and only time will tell where it ends up...
however, what i want to say is this: over the years i have cherished her friendship, i want only for her to be happy and find what she is looking for, and i am willing to move beyond this if she is...
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