Helllllloooooo out there.
I apologize for my online hiatus! Rest assured I have just been a bit swept up with my current going-ons and I plan to try and post once a month (a New Year's resolution). Sadly I missed January, and I know it is not very ambitious to say once a month, but really it is getting harder to commit oneself to writing something like this on a regular basis. I hardly have time to empty the dishwasher it seems!
I write because I feel like I am really growing up this year. I don't know what it is, but I crave shaking things up a bit/growing up a bit...and regardless of the reasons why, I am trying to do just that--follow through with life goals, and I am using the whole new year thing to make myself actually do what I say.
One goal I would like to expand upon tonight has to do with my treatment of relationships (funny that I am talking about those again), but relationships are and have always been a main life-driving force for me. And they have gotten out-of-hand for me lately and my goal is to change my view of friendships.
I tend to judge my character/my self-worth/my success on my relationships. This can be a good thing, and this can be a bad thing for me. Not everybody is like this, in fact most people base their success on other things like money, looks, sex, power, job/career, education, family, marital status, or a combination...But what I am saying is that I have always tried to be a good friend, above all things, and it means a lot to me if I feel like I have accomplished this role.
However, lately it has been difficult for me to measure my friendships. How does one rate another's "goodness"? What qualifies you as a good friend? Is your friendship just as good if you are friends with 500 other people in the exact same way? Some people would argue no you are not as good of a friend. I don't know what I think here, but sometimes I agree with those people. The more of yourself you give away the less you have to give. But sometimes I totally disagree, sometimes I feel the more the merrier and the more people I am friends with and know, the more life experience I have and the more I can offer my friends.
Lately I think I am a little too welcoming. I accept and I love people very easily and can be taken advantage of in my willingness to be another's friend. And when you are this kind of a person, you can gain a lot of friendships. However, what I have also learned recently is that I cannot maintain the kind of quality friendships I want with all of the people I would like to. I used to get more upset about this revelation. I used to actually get stressed. But part of growing up, I am letting go of all of those stresses, and it feels good. Friendship should not morph into some sort of micro-managing act. And for me it has begun to turn into that. And by using those words to describe my relationships, don't get me wrong I am not acting, I am still genuine, but I have learned that there is not enough time for me to be there for one friend who might be in need, when I am grabbing coffee with another friend. And most important, I cannot be there for a friend when I cannot be there for myself. In other words, this goal of mine, to change my relationships, means I want to have a better relationship with myself this year, and I think I am off to a better start than a month ago, so that's a start.
So what is with the title of the post? It takes me awhile to bring you to the point, but I might as well be forward now: this morning I received a note from a friend of mine, that I feel very connected to, although over the past 6 months we have had little contact with one another and it really has only been a recently developed relationship, but she mentioned to me the poem that talks about friends. The poem says that we will have friends for a reason, friends for a season and friends for a lifetime. This friend of mine said that she hoped and felt that our friendship would be for a lifetime. This message really touched me, and it moved me so, that I had to come on and write this post tonight. What I want to emphasize is this, first, I am grateful to have her in my life and second, why do people get hung up on the friends that they have lost, the friends that let-go, the friends that ignore you, the friends that can't speak from their heart to your heart? The friends that back-stab, the friends that want to see you fail, the friends that just don't care, the unreliable types? Why do we feel bad so bad about losing these people, when we have one or two or maybe a handful of just high quality people in our lives? Why can't we appreciate the beauty and truth that lie in these people that love us, and why do we let the other relationships get under our skin?
And I am not saying that because a friendship ends that it has to have ended badly. But why is it so hard for people to understand and accept the idea that there are friends for a reason, that are there because at the time it works and makes sense and then they go, and there are friends for a season, they give you great joy, but it was a time and place, a season, and you have moved on (you can't live in HI watching the whales your whole life), and then there are those friends that will be there for a lifetime.
Today I am embracing all of these friendships, and I feel lucky to know that I have a handful of people that I feel would do anything for me, and I would genuinely do anything for them. And with this feeling of gratitude, as I grow this year I hope to allow those friendships that grow so easily to just grow and not worry so much about those that just seem to have stopped growing and just accept them for the joy they provided me when they were growing.
No comments:
Post a Comment