Friday, December 10, 2010

Moving on...

I have come to another crossroads in my life where I had to make a fight or flight decision with one of my best friends.

As hard as this is to let go and allow myself to give up the fight (for “saving” the friendship), I am doing this for me. I spent a lot of energy the past few months realizing that no matter how much I want this friendship to work, and how much I have to offer…this is not a good match. We are too different and that the same ole drama will keep happening over and over. The intensity will always be a shadow of the friendship and one that will keep repeating the same hurts, misunderstandings, and judgments over and over. no matter how much WE try….I will never be considerate enough for her….and she will never stop judging me for not being who she thinks I should be. As much as I want to embrace, recognize, and respect our differences…the intense drama over them just won’t ever go away. It’s hard to be on the outside looking in and seeing this…because I do love this person, but I’ve come to recognize this relationship with varying expectations is unhealthy for both of us.
So I’m letting go.
This is a conscious decision we both made independently without a discussion. I’m sad for the loss,
Right now in spite of the negative emotions, I am trying to feel gratitude for what I did have in the friendship. Of course the pain is close behind trying to push any love and joy away and scream “Look at me!” But if I can consciously see the pain and move through it by recognizing some gratitude and lessons, I will be able to move forward. I will take away from this experience that I do want to continue to strive to be a compassionate, loving, thoughtful, joyful, caring person….but I cannot sacrifice who I am for another. I do feel this is what I allowed with this friend and the more I gave of myself, the higher the bar of expectation was raised by her and it was to a height that I couldn’t possibly achieve…no matter how much I intended on doing so.Ultimately there is a lot I have learned from the loss of this friendship.