Friendship...

I have always had good friends.  And I have always had not so good friends...

I seem to have this amazing ability to pick people who are both amazing and shitty.  And the weirdest part is sometimes they are the same people...

I am not sure how friendship morphs from being a place of trust, guidance, support and love to something that isn’t that, but it does for me.  Maybe it just does it for everyone, and I am just delusional in my belief that it is just me...I mean I know it isn’t just me, but sometimes it feels like I have the most fucked up relationships...drunk or sober.

And yes, I know I am the common denominator!

But it does seem to me that friendship, like all relationships, change as we do and sometimes what once worked, just doesn’t anymore.  Maybe the friendship has been limping along for years, maybe it has never been good, but vital in some way to your life and living.  Maybe there are other relationships with the same person overlaying the friendship that interfere with the natural course of that relationship...anyway, I guess the best thing is to say, “we change, so must our relationships...”

It is hard to let go of those we love.  Those we have entrusted with our deepest, darkest, most problematic areas of our lives.  It is hard to break the friendship when it often feels like there is so much riding on the confidentiality of the union.  To break it up, might just cause all the things you want to keep most private to leak out onto your social circle, corrupting it and corroding it.

But is fear ever a really good reason to just continue with something that no longer works?

Sometimes...

I mean it never really works out, that which is meant to end, shall.  That which is meant to persist, shall.  And it doesn’t really matter how we feel about it.

I wish we could normalize the change in relationships by having normal, routine checkins that were honest.    Like maybe annually...

How am I doing as your friend?

Am I meeting your needs?

Have you come to resent me, hate me, just not be all that jazzed with me anymore?

Do you need a break from me?

Is this the end of the road?

What do you need from me to move on without hurting each other in the process?

Then have the other person ask the same questions of you...

AND, most importantly be able to hear your honesty in your answer.

Perhaps the greatest sin of love and loving ending is the lack of honesty about who we have been all along.  Don’t we all try to fit ourselves into the confines of the parameters of each relationship?  Doesn’t that mean that ultimately we are going to betray someone? 

You?

Me?

Both?

I find myself asking the same questions, albeit differently this time, that perhaps relationships just change and that is how it is supposed to be.  I know for sure that my own lack of honesty about how I feel, who I am and what I think has been the basis for all my relational problems, romantic and friendship.  I am really not sure how to be honest AND stay connected to you.  It has always felt like honesty is something that I can’t even give myself sometimes.  Like whatever truth rages inside me, once released, causes irreparable harm to myself and/or those I love...

I am doing my best to just allow what happens, the feelings, the thoughts, the fears, the hurt, the anguish and the love to just be as it is and trust that I will always be moved from one place to another.  I guess that is why it feels so important to love with all my heart now.  In this moment because the next moment is never promised. It is never guaranteed.  And I am always going to want to run or hold onto something that is on its way out, never quite getting the magic of that decision right.  I run when I should stay and stay when I should run...

And so it goes...

So today, on the tale end of my wonderful Nashville visit to a friend I love dearly, I want to say that I am so incredibly grateful to her for her love, support, willingness to walk through life with me in an constantly evolving state of comfort and discomfort.  And to her for showing me that love endures, friendship remains and deepens.  That fun and love can coexist with each other, and I know this, at least in part, because of her.

Friendship doesn’t always last and today I am so grateful for all the relationships I have that change and flex and bend so that we can continue to love each other through life...no matter the distance.

Again, still...