One mom's ideas
I recently had a close friend of mine leave our workplace. We planned for multiple get togethers and we just knew that we would text each other just as much as we had been.
The first week goes by and we spoke every dang day. Then as the weeks went on it sure became faurther apart that we sent each other cute memes or updates.
It is now a few months since she left and we barely speak.
Adult friendships are hard.
The kids are screaming and running around, alternating between fighting and playing with toy guns and wands.
The dog keeps barking at thin air. Sure one of those times it was the mailman, but all the rest are for absolutely nothing.
The laundry is sitting exactly where I left it, with one load in the washer, one in the dryer. The rest sitting in baskets in front of said machines waiting their turn.
The dishes are piling up in the sink, all dinner ingredients are still sitting in the proper storage spaces they were put after the shopping trip from the other day.
And I am gloriously sitting on the couch, coffee cup in one hand, and a paperback book in another.
This is my idea of bliss during any school vacation.
Who needs sanity anyway?
I recently had an old friend send me a message telling me that he is very aware of the pain he caused in my life. The constant drama, the pain of lose of friendship by a person I called my best friend for many years.
And I find myself at a loss.
I have forgiven him before after a different seperation of friendship, just to have him do the same thing again.
I know better then to fall for this again.
I felt nothing however and I thought I would.
I felt no relief, no concern, no worry about how he has been.
Have I grown that much that I have figured out how to shut the door permanently on people who have shown constant negativity?
Today was one of those days that started out great. Everything seemed to fall into place. Kids got themselves ready without me having to chase them down at all, everyone remembered everything they needed without anybody having to run like crazy back into the house to search like a maniac for one lost thing or another. I was able to quickly drive out to my walking spot and get in three miles before the heat tried its best to suffocate me.
I got back to my car and once I got in my mind started racing with all of the things that I needed to do during the day. I tried to map out the route between the different stores and plan my time line to make sure that I was able to get everything I needed done before the kids came home.
And then it happened.
For no reason whatsoever, Anxiety decided to join the party. The what if’s started creeping into my plans and I never took the lead after that.
What if I could find better shoes online? Didn’t I need to read as many reviews as possible, and search through all of the different sales and coupon codes first?
What if I bought my teenage son the sweater that I had seen online last night and he hated it. This is a boy who would never say to my face that he doesn’t like something, he will just out it into his closet with a fake smile and it wont surface again until I attempt to clean out his closet again. What a waste of money this could be.
On the other hand, what if I walk into that second-hand shop that I have had my eye on and I end up buying a bunch of things, thinking that they are all great deals, but I get it all home and no one else likes the things that I picked out?
What if my poor dog who seemingly got his anxiety straight from me, was at home eating things like the cereal box that was set next to the trash can instead of broke down and put into the actual recycling bin. He likes to do that.
I went to none of these places. I went home.
I found my favorite TV show and I binge watched it while I drug my computer out to be able to at least act like I was doing some work.
Stupid anxiety.
Learning when to shut my mouth has always been a hardship.
In primary school I was frequently talked to about not talking so much and keeping the sound level of my voice lower. As I aged into high school it became more about the type of things that I was saying instead.
I am an outspoken person, who has no filter. There is a problem with my ability to understand that just because it ran thru my head, it does not mean it needs to be spoken out loud.
It is easy to see EXACTLY what the problem is with your friends relationship, and you just can not understand why they stay and put up with it right?
So you set to making sure that they understand that you have the solution to their whole relationship, and it is just that your friend has to leave. There is no way that they deserve all of these bad things that you have heard about happening in their life. The other person in this situation clearly is always wrong, and can never do anything right so what in the world are they doing staying in this relationship?
You act like what you are doing is all in good nature, just to try to help them because you know they deserve better. You bite your tongue and then just make sideways comments about how that is just not normal. You listen to them while they are upset, pick them up when they are hurt and you go and pick them up when “they just need to get out.”
So you must know everything that goes on in that relationship right?
Because everyone goes out and bitches to their friends when they did something wrong to someone else right? They openly and easily confess to having the wrong tone of voice, or over reacting to something said to them. Obviously they will tell you when they hurt the other ones feeling by the choices they made right? Or when they forgot (AGAIN) to do something for the other one, that they have been asking for weeks. Everyone downplays the situation when they are the one that has done something wrong.
Amazingly, you are completely forgiving for any of the wrong doing your friend has done, if they have told you.
DISCLAIMER: If you know that your friend is being physically abused, please step in and do anything to help. I do understand that sometimes, people have incredibly low self-esteem and stay in a bad relationship because they feel that they deserve it. I completely understand and stand behind the idea of making sure that your friend understands their self worth. What I don’t understand is when you continuously bad mouth your friends relationship, because you yourself do not understand how relationships work. You understand one side, not both. It take’s both sides to make relationship work.
Live life lightly 