This is a 2 part blog. Please scroll down to the entry before this one to read the first installment!
The brief recap is that a friend I was close with and saw regularly had some changes in her life that made her unavailable for the same level of friendship, time, and attention, and I took this change very personally.
When I told my friend I didn’t want to continue our friendship, she was hurt. I had imagined she would be angry and be glad to see the back of me always being too needy. She refused to let it go without a fight and she immediately made time for us to really talk about what was happening for me. It was NOT an easy or pleasant conversation. We both cried and yelled and spoke hurtful truths. I thought we were going to end, and I regretted going there for that conversation. I felt it’d have been better to leave all of that ugliness unsaid and just part ways. The conversation continued until 4am when we were both exhausted. But in the end, we hugged it out, said we loved one another enough to keep trying and get our friendship “back on track.”
My expectations and hopes were raised that we could get through this and be what we were once more. But as time went on, her availability or seeming interest didn’t change much. For a very long time, things still felt empty. But as I had tried to end it and failed, I decided to just endure it and accept the distance. Maybe the friendship would fizzle out. As a result of that thinking, in time, my expectations for it to be what it used to be diminished. It wasn’t like that anymore and it was never going to be.
When my expectations began to fall, I noticed though that my despair also diminished. I couldn’t control it or change it, the only choice was to accept it. As I accepted less time and attention, I was able to appreciate that although we spoke less, this was still someone who knew me better than most. I could still share with her, and she could still share with me, when we made the time to do so. I still cared for her, and I realised she still cared for me. We are actually still close, albeit in less consuming ways.
I reflected with my friend over that dinner that I hadn’t done much to save that friendship. I was very all or nothing about it. I couldn’t endure the silence and distance and space growing between us or the emptiness. I had assumed it was going to feel like that forever. And that it was going to hurt forever. It took a long time, but it did eventually feel less empty. If my friend hadn’t of insisted she would not let me go without a fight, a really important person in my life would be no longer.
I am really glad I learned to let it be less, that I tolerated the emptiness. That I reached acceptance without being extreme. That was my fight. My friend knows this was hard for me and she is so proud of me for working through it. She did fight for us in the end and I am glad she did, but really the change had to be from me. I had assumed she had to make more effort to prove I was still important, when really I had to tolerate the uncomfortable period so she could pursue happiness in her life. I had to support that even if it cost me. That’s what good friends do. If this story resonates with you, let go of what it was. Let it be what it is. It wont be easy but it will probably be worth it. Once your experience meets your expectations, you will feel better. It’s not the experience that needs to adjust, it is your expectations. If something is different, then that is what it is. Not worse or less. Your feelings are valid but it isn’t your friends job to manage your feelings, you will have to do that alone.
I was so caught up in what my friend did or didn’t do. I never stopped to really ask myself “What have I done to save this?” Remember how I said you might live to regret the things you didn’t do? As I finished my meal with my friend, she concluded that is the worst regret, what she didn’t do to save relationships with people. The effort she didn’t put in and the emptiness she would not endure as she wonders what might have been that isn’t anymore. Sometimes we don’t recognise that when people walk away it was because we let them go and we cost ourselves the pleasure of any connection at all.
Endure the emptiness. It will pass. The ending probably wont. If you are hurting enough to walk away, the friendship is probably meaningful enough not to!
