Saturday, January 8, 2011

Dear John: It is time to move on

There comes a time in your life when you must do whatever is necessary to keep an inner strength and positivity deep within yourself. Hard as hell as it may seem, in order to stay true to yourself and to what you believe in, it must be done.

It is that time, time to de-friend someone.

This is the most difficult thing for me to do; anyone who knows me knows that I am the largest pushover known to man. Saying no to a girl-scout let alone hanging up on a phone stalker trying to sell a newspaper subscription is difficult.

Riding high from a week filled with major surprises, upsets and confusing outcomes my mind was tired, cranky and on edge when a call came in from a “friend.”

This friend and I have been wavering for some time, she calls when she needs to relieve steam. And of course, I listen. Pushover. I am a good friend to her, however she flees if I ever am in need of support. Which is not often but when you need a friend, it is nice to know you have someone on call. She is not someone I would call.

I have never been a lengthy telephone conversation person, but being as I live nowhere near my family nor friends this little value is holding more importance and I'm learning to embrace the phone with each passing day. For the most part, unless it is the core group I am brief in conversations or listen to what is going on with other people.

With this week and its emotional havoc I updated the FB status like crazy and spent the majority of the week on the phone, I needed immediate support.

Which naturally brought in a phone call from this “friend” who saw an update, she was concerned. The call lasted no more than 12 minutes (Thank you Blackberry for having a call log) and I barely managed a single sentence in. She was calling to give mindless babble about a shameless or not so shameless encounter. These conversations I honestly don’t mind with my friends. Whatever, everyone chats. That’s what we do.

But don’t call me and then hang up on me when I need to vent too. I am always here to listen and provide support to anyone but friendships/relationships are mutual. They’re two way streets. I was more than a little irritated and the call put our friendship in perspective. I swear this week has been a serious break up week. Putting being a pushover aside, I’m non-confrontational and friends with EVERYBODY and all of the sudden I’m tossing out all of the bad things and eventually replacing with better. What the hell happened this week?

When it rains it pours. This is not a joke.

So I’m de-friending through an email. It’s completely impersonal, I hate this. I hate that I have to even use the word hate. Childish doesn’t even come close to how stupid this notion is especially at this point in my life and it sounds like I’m in junior high school let alone a aging woman.

While I’m sitting here, figuring out how to break up with a friend in a nice and cordial way I know that she will never understand what I am writing. She will only see whatever it is that she wants to see. That come next week, my telephone will once again ring and a missed call will come in from a certain number.

Will my conscience kick into overdrive making my fingers itch to dial up only to be talked at, not talked with? No. It is raining, but it’s not pouring. I’m taking this week as a serious wake up call for not sweating the small stuff. People come and go in life, I may like a lot of them but there are some that I will not connect well with and this is okay. It is okay to say no and to let them go.

(MORGS, YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO THIS!!!)

All of that was in the past couple of days, the message went out late last night and I woke up this morning feeling somewhat relieved. There is a fresh dusting of snow on the roads this morning and I will only see the good in it. It’s beautiful outside, the day is new and after a much needed sisterly phone call I’m headed out for a tarot reading! Thank you Debbie (ya heard my crazy antics!) for being a genius and owning a gorgeous store with a lot more than clothes!!!

Happy Saturday all!

8 comments:

  1. I just broke up with a friend via facebook chat yesterday. My best friend since 2nd grade, actually. Very similar situation (and incredibly impersonal!) ...awfully tough, but as I declare it a Happy New Year to ME...it is the best thing that could have happened. :/ Feeling ya, girlfriend!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Morgan! I'm visiting from the SITS forum at BlogFrog. Breaking off a friendship is not easy for me either. I usually take the coward's way out and just don't respond to phone calls, and never formally tell them I don't want to be their friend anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  3. KY-Since 2nd grade...are YOU okay?? True colors/true friends. I am so sorry that you're going through this too. It stinks and is a pain....but.... your new year statement is the best thing ever! It's super positivo and keeps you moving forward. Whoever wants to join in on your ride, all aboard. If not, it's their loss.

    Patti B-Thanks for stopping by-stay as long as you'd like : ) Me x 1 week ago was in fact ignoring the calls deciding on how to act, I have always been that person who can't ever say no even if someone treats me like garbage. I guess it's fear of karma. Who knows. This can go on for eons but enough was enough.

    Feeling stacks better after spending the day with the company of others.

    ReplyDelete
  4. WOW.

    I de-friened someone last year. We had been friends for five or six years. The last two years of it though, weren't so peachy. We lived in different cities but talked on the phone almost daily. I always felt like she was competitive - boyfriends, children, jobs. I never understood it. We're friends, right? Aren't we just supposed to support each other? Toward the end of our friendship, nearly every time we hung up the phone, I was crying. My husband, who stays out of EVERYTHING, even said, "why do you do this to yourself? what do you get out of it?" I couldn't answer the question ... so I knew it was time to part ways. Not easy but it had to be done.

    I hope that you're still able to see the good - it's not easy to remove people from your life sometimes but you'll be all the better for it.

    And thank you for the e-mail. I'll respond tomorrow when I have more time. You are beyond sweet.

    ReplyDelete
  5. In 2010, I came to the conclusion that I needed to let go of a few relationships and it seemed petty and tired, but I did it. I found that not only was I unhappy with my friends, but I wasn't happy with how I felt towards them. I couldn't accept them and knew that it was time to move on. People come in and out of our lives all the time to teach us things; my time with these people had come to an end.

    It's not easy, but you should be proud that you put your needs first and did something to make yourself happy.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good for you!! That is no fun when you are in a one-way friendship. Some people just suck! I hope you find some better friends!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. HW-I honestly believe that insecurities cause riffs between people. Having to end conversations on such notes is painful and probably not missed at all! That and your husband sounds like my brother in law. It must be a guy mentality and what makes men so different from women. Thank goodness for them!

    Kimberly-I love this, people do come and go and with each interaction brings an experience to learn from. That is exactly how I'm looking at this and able to keep a positive outlook about letting this one go and how to avoid situations like this should they appear in the future.

    Ashley-Thanks! A friend that I finally did make here so far got me out of the house today and into her store for a tarot reading. Spooky!! The guy was accurate but of course it was taken lightly.....and I walked out with another sweater.

    ReplyDelete
  8. It absolutely ASTOUNDS me how many people go through this exact same thing.

    I have so much that I could write on this subject, but it exhausts me beyond words..so instead, I'll just say this...I've been there, I understand.

    ReplyDelete