Throughout the years I have chronicled the ups and downs of my relationships and interactions with the people in my life. The repeated cycles of feeling inferior, never good enough, and trying to measure up to my own ideal of acceptable standards. But sooner or later somebody near and dear to me would leave my life abruptly. Unable to settle without any sort of closure, I would find my mind wandering.. wondering.. obsessing, ruminating. Did I not matter to them at all? How could they leave me so easily and never look back? What did I do? These thoughts would consume me and I would withdraw and fall into a dark depression. Later on down the road we might reconnect, and I would make myself sick with anxiety about screwing things up again. This anxiety would drain me of all energy and reserves. For this reason I would find it difficult to see these friends very often, which would only push us further apart in the end. I am now in my 30s and still struggling to handle my interactions with people on top of my own inner demons. Though the medication I am on now has significantly reduced my anxiety, I'm happy to say - making it soo much easier for me to be myself, communicate and connect one-on-one. I am less afraid of screwing things up and more prepared to go out on a line and risk it all for a friendship. I couldn't be happier with the little circle of friends I have now, and the way we've all grown and changed together. It's just too bad this all had to happen right when I had kids, as I often find myself too physically exhausted and loaded with morning-til-bedtime tasks to find a good time to escape and socialize in person these days! But then, if it weren't for my kids I never would have gotten better in the first place. :) There is one thing that has caused me to take a second look at my life now, however, and realize that I still have more important lessons to learn. Back in April my husband lost his best friend after becoming hurt and upset upon discovering that this friend and his wife had been hanging out with our friends (who are also family) for some time without letting us know; all the while telling us that they were "too busy" to see us whenever we'd ask. Because Paul was upset and verbalized it, they became upset with him which resulted in his friend's wife initiating a "restraining order" telling us that this is it, it's over between the four of us. Unfortunately this was all done over Facebook messages, which may cause some misunderstandings to have slipped through the cracks unnoticed. We'll never know. Adding salt to our wounds, we ended up losing our other friends in this too. When we attended a family birthday party in which the friend's wife also made an appearance, we found ourselves on the receiving end of awkward avoidances as she tried to be centred in all the main events (of OUR family), while still having nothing to do with us, and straight-up giving us the silent treatment. Yes, that silly thing we all used to do to with our peers when we were eight, apparently some adults still use this grade-school tactic to get their message across. Anyway. It was an uncomfortable situation and I figured for us all to remain friends that we should at least try to talk and straighten ourselves out so that we could still be civil and polite in situations where we are all meant to be grouped together due to the sharing of mutual friends. But no one cared how myself or Paul were feeling, and our friends in the middle of all this didn't want to get involved. We discovered that we had nobody in our corner but ourselves. To me, that hurts as much or even more so than finding out that I had been lied to. Or that nobody cared enough to even talk to us face-to-face to see if we could get a better understanding, clear up any misunderstandings, etc. These people we thought cared about us as much as we did them all turned their backs on us without a second thought. Perhaps our hurt feelings were causing too much stress for them to have fun... I am 30 years old and still dealing with this type of nonsensical drama in my life. So I've been doing some reading about how I can keep moving forward, let go, and stop living in the past. Because I'm tired of letting this stuff get me as down as it does. I need to be able to move beyond it and not let it consume me. All my life, I've never broken off a friendship, only been in one serious relationship (Paul). I've never let anyone go, it has always been the other way around. So now I'm taking a look at how I should handle these types of situations. The answer soon became clear as I dug through words of wisdom and inspirational quotes on Pinterest. "You don’t ever have to feel guilty about removing toxic people from your life. It doesn’t matter whether someone is a relative, romantic interest, employer, childhood friend, or a new acquaintance — you don’t have to make room for people who cause you pain or make you feel small. It’s one thing if a person owns up to their behavior and makes an effort to change. But if a person disregards your feelings, ignores your boundaries, and continues to treat you in a harmful way, they need to go. ~Daniell Koepke" I can see now that I am hurting myself by holding on to people who do not value me. Who do not care enough to communicate the problem in the hopes that things can get better. To simply care enough to want things to get better for all of us, not just themselves; just wanting to help out. Through writing this post I have also accomplished an important step in learning to let go, by getting my thoughts and feelings out there, all written down! Maybe these friends will read this and understand me better, maybe not. Enough time has gone by that I am ready to stop grieving the loss of someone important in my life, and dwelling on what was, what could have been. I am ready to feel valued again, I am ready to start on that road to healing. And that begins by letting go of my past connections, only holding on to those that serve me well now. I cannot continue to prioritize those who only saw me as optional.
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