We Need to Talk...

Have you ever wanted to break up with a friend?
Have you ever felt the distance growing wider and wider and decided that trying to make the relationship work felt more like beating your head up against the wall than maintaining a friendship?
Have you ever wanted to call it quits?

Most people have felt like this before. But most people never "officially" call it quits. Most people lose interest and put less and less effort in, and then get hurt and upset when they run into the almost ex-friend and things are awkward.

It's too bad we can't accept that not everyone is meant to be in our lives forever. It's too bad we can't remember the good times fondly, say a civil hello when we see the person and just appreciate what they were in our lives for the period of time they were there.

But we can't, can we? There are very few people I know who can remember someone fondly who they have fallen out with. We can't because we invest ourselves in people, and when the relationship changes and it looks like our investment is slipping away, we get hurt and angry and sometimes question our self worth. Did we stop being friends because they don't like me anymore? Did I do something wrong to drive them away? What made them stop caring? Bottom line, we don't get closure from relationships because no one knows how to break up with a friend. Instead, we choose to avoid the subject, sometimes letting it eat away at us over the hurt and pain we feel.

I recently had to "break up" with some family friends. No sense in giving you all of the details, but the gist of it was that I had to make a very difficult phone call to effectively end a 24 year relationship. No one else had addressed it (none of the "adults"), and I had to be the one to say the words, due to a position I was put in. It made me realize, no one knows how to react in these situations. So with shaking hands and a false casual tone in my voice, I left a voicemail (cowardly?! I dunno...) to end all future contact. Hopefully.

It's not that I wanted to be mean, but everyone had been fairy jumping around these invisible lines for two years now. The relationship had changed, the boundaries had been moved, and no one knew where they were anymore. Everyone was experiencing hurt and confusion over the sitaution in their own ways.

Someone needed to make a decision on where they stand, and that someone had to be me. Was it easy? Not at all. Will I know what do you if/when I run into them in the future? Absolutely not. But neither will they, right? I think the thing that everyone forgets in these awkward situations is that the other party is probably feeling just as uncomfortable as we are.

I shall do my best to be thankful for the many years we shared, to remember fondly the many memories I hold with them playing a part. Life is too short for bitterness, and life is way too short for regret.

Why can't we tell people when we have changed, they have changed, and we're no longer benefitting from the relationship? How come we can't take that news well, even when we know it's true?

Relationships are constantly changing and evolving, and when we don't move forward to a common way of thinking, the relationship gets lost.

Friends Forever? Rarely ever....

Shauna