Sunday, April 12, 2015

When A Friendship Ends

This post has been on my mind for months now and I think I am finally ready to write it down and move on from this hard and hurtful season of my life I have been dealing with for years. 

The loss of a friend is one of the most painful experiences I have dealt with in my life, even more than my divorce. 

I think it has been more painful because of the unknown of what happened in our lives to make this friendship fall by the way side and now totally dissolve.

At least with my divorce I know why our marriage failed and have come to terms with those issues many years ago and after years of therapy, tears and falling back on my faith I was able to move on and be a better person because of it.

A little background on the friend I have lost. We have known each other since I has 16 and she was 15. We worked together for more than 5 years during our high-school years. She was a part of my wedding and was blessed to have her at my special day. We were inseparable for years, even when I went away for college in Duluth. She would come and visit and when I came home we would always hang out. I was really close to her mom and that is also a relationship I miss greatly. 

Some where things when array and we stopped communicating, seeing each other, even though not as much as when we were younger we still made time for each other. 

I have reached out to her via emails and letters asking what happened to our friendship. Was it something I did, said or didn't say. I racked my brain to try to figure out what it was that happened to make this long term friendship just disappear in a puff of smoke. I never received a response from her. 

Her brother passed away this past January and I again reached out to her via a card and letters and still no response. I told her my feelings on the passing of her brother and how I missed and loved her. 

I had planned on going to the funeral taking my son as support but decided on the day of the funeral to not attend. I didn't want to be in a place that I was not wanted nor did I want it to be awkward for her, her family or myself. I said a prayer for her, sister, and her mom to help them get through the passing of their brother/son. 


The fear I had, and the fear we have as women, is that we’ll be judged for being brokenhearted over an ended friendship. How do you tell the other friends that a central friendship in your life is over without being gossipy? How do you process the hurt and pain without seeming overly invested and needy?


The ripping apart felt the way a sheet looks when it is torn in two. Shredded. Loud. Sudden. Jagged.

A beautiful blog I read to help me get through this listed these 5 things to do to help ease the pain of a lost friendship.


1. Give your sadness a safe space. Don’t skip over the sadness — give yourself permission to mourn the loss for an appropriate amount of time. Let it have its say, but don’t let it be your boss because hope always gets the last word.
2. Don’t assume there’s something wrong with you. When a friendship or other relationship changes, it’s easy to look inward and think What did I do wrong? Instead look upward and assume that for now, God simply wants your attention elsewhere. Trust Jesus with your reputation as well as this situation.
3. Believe God continues to give His best to you. This includes people who are best for you.
4. Pray God’s best for your friend. Whatever the particulars behind the relationship change, let’s represent Jesus well by letting the situation bring out the best in us, not the worst.
5. Fervently thank God for the vibrant relationships you do have. Even if it’s just one friend, and that friend moved five states away. Or that friend is preoccupied with a new baby or is busy with a new job. Thank God for who is present at your table and in your life.

It takes strength and courage to hold our relationships in upturned palms instead of squeezed in our tight fists. To say you are welcome to stay here, but I won’t bolt you inside. Some seasons call for bravery in the form of staying close. Other times, a season calls for bravery in the form of keeping our distance. In those moments, may we continue to give ourselves a little attention by enjoying the good things — and good people — around us.
I am a woman who does not have a multitude of friends. I can count my friends on one hand. These would be the friends I count on to lift me up, confide in, for support, for encouragement and to be honest with me in all aspects of my life and theirs. These are the friends that hurt my heart if they are hurt or sick. Not all these friends live near me or do we see each other daily like back in the day when your bestie was at your house all the time. I form deep connections with people through mutual likes and dislikes, respect, love, faith, being able to confide in them and honesty.

I do have fringe friends, the ones met in college, at work or through others. They are wonderful people but I don't share my life with these people nor do I feel the same connection in my heart when it comes to these friends.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!"
Friendship in its rarest, most powerful form is built day by day on a foundation of vulnerability and grace. It’s bonded tight from the gritty, the glorious, and the garden-variety moments that come with honest conversations and hearts that refuse to label or judge.


I still think about her a lot in my daily life. Little things I see or hear will remind me of her and either brings a smile to my face or sadness. I am on the path to putting those good memories in a safe place in my heart and letting go of the sadness. I wish her well always.






One Word for 2015

My word for 2015 is: Mindfulness


mind·ful·ness
noun
1. the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.
2. a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, & thoughts

Synonyms: heedful, thoughtful, regardful

Albert Einstein reminded us: Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

When I observe, listen and feel another’s experience
My heart is opened and I am connected to the world
In this moment~Anonymous

People are not born with any values or beliefs. Our values and beliefs infiltrate the most basic parts of our being from those around us. They are like contagious diseases, spread by those whoa re had by them to newcomers to the group.
There is no necessary correlation between what people say and what they do. There is a close correlation between what people value and believe and what they accomplish.
Values and beliefs are the software that energies, guides, channels, filters, an screens all of our attention and all of our actions. What we value and what we believe not only defines who we are, but how things will turn out for us in the end.
If you don’t value accomplishment over activity, your life will be more or less a random sequence of activities.
What you don’t understand of your owns values and beliefs will make you more a victim of them. The ones you haven’t consciously chosen will penetrate you from outside sources.
What you don’t understand of the values and beliefs of others–whether enemies, competitors, friends, or partners–will leave you naked and vulnerable on the playing field.
Values and beliefs are not what make the world go round. They are the world around which everything else revolves.
So, what happens when you close your eyes and focus your attention inward while you’re hurtling down the coastline in a train at 90 miles an hour? First, you notice every creak, squeak, screech and groan. Every jiggle, jostle and rumble registers. You realize what a noisy, bumpy ride this is. But when you keep returning your focus to your breath, those noises and sensations gradually recede, to an outer layer of your awareness.
There’s value in just this — realizing that you can control your focus. You discover that you can live with the annoying squeak, you can actually put it completely out of your mind. As you can with every other thought or sensation. Once you experience this, it’s not a big leap to grasp how easily we allow ourselves to become distracted. Hooked. Preoccupied. Triggered. Obsessed. Addicted.
Yes, the entire spectrum of Things That Keep You From What Really Matters. Which begs the question: What does really matter? That’s up to you of course, but you can’t decide that until you allow yourself to be in the moment, untethered from the past, unbound by the future.
None of this is new if you’re into mindful meditation. You know that being in the moment might mean feeling scared or anxious or nervous or pissed. But when you’re mindful, you recognize those as passing states.
You don’t have to bury the anxious thought in a place where it will eventually come back as a monster that ties you in knots. Nor do you have to gloom on to outrage, judgment or any of the other unwanted states you might have found yourself inhabiting in the past. You can decide that those places are not where you want to live.
Matthew 6:34 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today."