Friendships shouldn’t be difficult, but sometimes they can be a downright messy and very complicated endeavor.
Some friendships die a natural death: people move, change jobs, start a family, or embark on a completely different stage of life. Other friendships, however, end prematurely and abruptly. When a friendship is over and you don’t always understand why and it can be painful and puzzling. Sometimes a friend ends your relationship without even telling you and sometimes they are able to muster up enough courage to FINALLY say all the things they have wanted to say for a very, very long time.
I spent a good part of last week stewing over a friendship I have had for 20 years. We exchanged scathing e-mails and I ended up sharing some things that were WAY overdue. Should one of us have picked up the phone to discuss our issues? Absolutely, but e-mail has always sort of been “our thing” due to our geographic challenges.
It would take an entire blog to describe all the ups and downs and twists and turns I have had with this person over the years, so I’ll spare you the torrid details and just say that like in any relationship, there were good times and some nice memories that I will always cherish, but ultimately, pride, ego and an unwillingness or inability to “show up” played a huge role in the end of our friendship.
I am certainly not perfect and there are two sides to every story, but this is my blog, so you can figure out which one of us I think was the selfish one.
I have experienced monumental changes during the last three years (I got re-married, lost both of my parents at the same time, left a 10+ year career in marketing to deal with the fall out and became a mother) and my friend wasn’t much of a friend to me during any of these life altering moments and instead of saying anything to her, I pretended that everything was okay.
