i keep looking at this bag in my bedroom. it's like half full of clothes and shit that awesome husband and i need to get rid of. and we just leave it there. open. because we keep meaning to go through our drawers and the closet and what not and get rid of more shit. because, you know. we have a lot of shit.
in one drawer there's this pair of jeans that i love. something about the way they're cut, the flares are really neat, whatever it is. i just love how they fit. but they don't fit me 'right' anymore. they used to but now they don't. they don't respect me the way i am.
same for some people. someone i considered one of my best friends posted some picture about moving back to florida on facebook with a countdown. like happy her and her husband are moving back to florida. and neither of them said anything to awesome husband or me. even though we like texted back and forth a couple of weeks ago. you don't decide to move shortways across the country in like a few days. so OBVIOUSLY they had decided well before then, like they knew the last time i spoke to them.
when we all lived in florida, they were scared to tell us they were moving back to new york because they thought we'd be mad. i love these people like family and told them like, yah i'll miss you and i'm sad you're leaving but i'm so excited that you're making a move that's better for your family.
when we decide we were moving back to new york, mom and awesome husband and me, i didn't say ANYTHING about it on facebook or anything like that until i told my best friend in person. i would have loved to start networking and sharing my news right away, but i needed to be sure that i told my bestie before the general public knew.
it was the right thing for me to do.
but these friends, this couple that i thought of as family, just posted this shit and left it. didn't say anything to me, didn't bother to call or text or anything. flat out disrespectful. you tell me you think of me as fucking family? treat me like family. don't disrespect me.
it's like those jeans. i love them, but they got to go. i can't keep things - or people - in my life who disrespect me. i've spent way too long learning how to love myself for who i am, i can't let people treat me like that.
did i lash out on facebook? i sure as fuck did. is that immature or whatever? yeah i bet it is. is it disrespectful? YES IT IS. when people treat my badly, i don't sink to their level. like when someone cuts me off in traffic, i don't have to get them back - i let it go. when someone flat out disrespects me? i have to let them know.
did i overreact? yeah, maybe. but you know it's better to learn what someone truly thinks of you before it's too late.
so awesome husband and i should probably get to that bag of clothes soon. 'that which is temporal will be cut away'.
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in other news, we're shopping for a new car. i was offered an opportunity i can't pass up and we need a second car asap so i can take advantage of it. we're hoping to go test driving or whatever over the next couple of days. exciting, for sure. i'll be busy enough this week with black friday coming up. working in sales/retail does that to you.
a year ago tomorrow we found out mom had cancer. ultimately, still just counting days. it's not just counting those days that mark when mom passed, or marking the days i've had without her. it's about the days i have left. life is short. days pass in what seem like hours, weeks fly by. it was just the middle of summer and i was sweating in the backyard, now it's about to be winter and the holiday season is here again.
life is to short to put up with people mistreating you. i refuse to let people or jeans treat me without respect.
Interesting... my jeans are too tight but I keep them cuz I want to squeez back into them someday... and a relatively close friend moved to Australia over the summer, with a new guy she met, and I learned of it on facebook, and yes was hurt -- I mean Canada to Australia is not a spur of the moment thing, unless you are a flighty moron. So i unfriended her.... bitch.
ReplyDeleteSome people really don't know what friendship really means. It pisses me off.
ReplyDeleteVery well said. This is a difficult realization to come to, but once you clean these people out from your life, it's amazing how much better your life gets.
ReplyDeleteSomeone who I thought was my best friend for 10 years, didn't call me when she gave birth to her baby. She posted it on Facebook. When I called her 2 days later to check in with her and see how she was doing since I knew her due date was coming up, she was shocked I didn't know. Now I don't check Facebook on a regular basis and I would've expected a phone call from either her or her husband at least the following day. We were like sisters. I was extremely hurt and she didn't seem to understand why.
It took a whole other year of similar selfish behavior on her part for me to finally cut the cord, and it was by far the best decision I have made. When she left both my rehearsal dinner and wedding reception early because the new baby was fussy (her husband was there btw), that was it. Did I mention she was the Maid of Honor?
She has recently tried to get back in touch with me and I'm not interested in having someone like that in my life again.
@alfred, i know. i have a lot of clothes that are a bit snug that i hang on to, thinking 'one day... one day i'll fit into them again'. but i really like clothes shopping. i'm kidding myself thinking i wouldn't just go out and buy new jeans if i lost those few pounds.
ReplyDelete@ruth, yup. i thought of these two as family. i was going to invite them to the dinner we're having for my mom that is family only. glad i didn't.
@sarah, that's fucked up. and it's the same kind of thing - looking back, i see there was a lot of selfish behavior that i didn't notice at the time. was it all dealbreaker stuff? no, not at all. but stuff that pissed me off a little bit here, a little bit there. i'm sad that our friendship is over, but i'm more sad that it was such a one-sided friendship and that awesome husband and i didn't get it. i mean, neither of us felt like that until the past six or seven weeks when they stopped calling us and stuff like that.
and the shit on facebook? you should have seen what their other friends - some of whom i thought of as friends too - said to me. yeah, i know, i lashed out because i was hurt. but you know what? people who love me wouldn't intentionally hurt me like that. and once they realized they hurt me that badly, they would say something about it. not just ignore it.
To play devil's advocate, in some situations like these, the other people involved might really have other stuff going on, and their own reasons for not telling another person something.
ReplyDeleteI know for a few of my friends with new babies, a superquick update to FB was the easiest, most painless, least effort way to announce their babies had come. My friend has been completely bagged for 7 weeks. It's an effort for her to wash her hair.
Not contacting certain people was never intentional or meant to hurt. My friend is sleeping every moment she has, and coping the best she can. For her, it's not about shunning people, but surviving with her baby.
I've often personalized what people do, to the point of cutting them out of my life, only to realize later that they were dealing with some seriously heavy shit of their own that had nothing to do with me.
I have no knowledge of anyone here's individual situations, I'm just speaking from my own experience.
Could it be that your friends were afraid to tell you they were leaving so close to the anniversary of your mom's death?
Any chance they thought that they told you, or mentioned it when drinking one night? Any chance one or either of them has severe anxiety and just couldn't tell you face to face without losing their shit and bawling like a baby?
Either way, I'm not saying it is right.
It's just hard sometimes to know what is going on in someone else's head, when in truth, it's possible they didn't even REALIZE they were disrespecting you.
However, even considering that, you would trust that a good friend would consider that you might feel hurt and would be proactive in letting you know, so maybe they aren't as good a friend as you once thought.
It's just hard.
Looking back on my life, I wish I hadn't closed the door on people because they hurt me in one way or another. I don't mean that anyone should let someone else walk all over them... but I know I was personally in re-enactment, and responded way stronger than how a "healthy" person would respond.
I took it all so personally. I vowed not to be hurt by them again.
And then I sat crying when it came time to send invitations to our wedding because I realized how few friends I had and how isolated I became.
Again, I don't know your situation, and a friend you considered family would hopefully know you better and your emotions better.
All I know is that life is short, and true good friends are hard to come by and hard to keep.
Communication is crucial.
If the communication or willingness isn't there, then it probably isn't a good friendship worth keeping.
Hope this post isn't upsetting, because I get it when you are truly, deeply hurt by someone.
All I know is the regret and remorse I feel for my own actions.
I just want you to be surrounded by people that love you for you, Steph.
ReplyDelete<3 steph c, i know. and i know that true friends are hard to come by. one of your closing sentiments really sums it up: "Communication is crucial. If the communication or willingness isn't there, then it probably isn't a good friendship worth keeping."
ReplyDeleteawesome husband and i tried to set up dates with this couple on four occasions just to be told they were busy, they'd get back to us. after the fourth time, we decided to stop initiating the date-making and figured they'd get back to us when they could. then they went on a cruise with another couple (something we had talked about doing numerous times) and posted that update while on the cruise, so we couldn't speak to them right away. when they got back, it was all 'yup we're moving and so happy about it, etc'. no apology, not even a personal message. just more updates on facebook.
and i get what you mean when people are busy - i just updated my facebook status when mom finally passed away for all of my friends except one or two because emotionally i couldn't be bothered - like your friend with the baby. sometimes there's just too much.
like two months ago, i was talking to the female part of this couple and we were discussing how great it would be if they rented a house near ours. florida came completely out of left field.
i appreciate someone willing to play devil's advocate ;) i love doing it. but i do know that i am determined to live my life without regretting my actions, and have done a damn good job in my first 31 years. i don't take cutting someone out of my life lightly. but i've worked too hard to not hate myself and want to die every moment of every day, and i'll be damned if i let someone else make me feel like i'm worthless.
OMG DID I JUST BLOG ON MY OWN BLOG??? the comments are longer than my post ;)
ReplyDeletelol to your last comment.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing when I saw mine.
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I do get it. We've been there, too with other couples. You can only try so hard and be ignored or rejected so much before it's time to healthily move on.
You know what is right for you, so follow your heart.
Much love,
StephC