friendship
Even when friends directly say the words to my face, sometimes I have a hard time believing them.
Even when those friends are gracious enough to write the words down in a held-in-my-own-hand tangible sort of way, I am tempted to doubt their sincerity.
You see, I bring a lot of baggage to a friendship. Extra drama. A generous helping of neediness. And my inherent go-to is to assume that people are kind or people are helpful or people stop by born of a pity, akin to the sort you feel when you hand your dollar bills to the man on the street holding a sign. Sometimes I am guilty of assuming my friends feel sorry for me and that their “yeses” come from that place.
I’m uncertain why I believe this.
Actually – that is not true.
I know why I believe this.
I’ve been severely betrayed and hurt by many friends, particularly women. And not just once and not just in the normal woes of relationships that ebb and flow through the changes in distance and situation, but in life-shifting ways that feel more like a soap opera than a regular day to day life of a relatively ordinary family.
I have reason to be suspicious of women. (Well, I did have reason. Not so much anymore I guess. Is that a silver lining? I can make jokes at my own expense – right?) At any rate, there was a time that having close friendships with women was tricky. It felt downright risky, in fact.
I don’t feel that way any longer. Not mostly. Not usually.
I hope I never feel that way again, actually.
My current friendships with a handful of women are life-giving now. They’re highly valuable to me. Important. Sustaining.
And I am so thankful.
You really can’t undervalue the role friendships play in recovery. In day to day living. In feeling connected and regular and a part of your own life.
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2 Comments
Chelsea
The sentence “Extra drama.” bothered me. So I looked up drama in the dictionary. In the original definition, this sentence could be correct. I guess. But I didn’t like that. ;o) So I looked it up on urban dictionary (I mean, what a trusted resource!) to see if drama had a different connotation these days. This is what it said, “A way of relating to the world in which a person consistently overreacts to or greatly exaggerates the importance of benign events.
Typically “drama” is used by people who are chronically bored or those who seek attention.
People who engage in “drama” will usually attempt to drag other people into their dramatic state, as a way of gaining attention or making their own lives more exciting.”
So basically I just wanted to clarify. If by drama, you mean ‘a state, situation, or series of events involving interesting or intense conflict of forces’, then that’s okay. But if you mean all of that mess in the last paragraph, that’s inaccurate. No one else thinks that.
Mainly, you are a good friend so it makes it easy to be a friend back. Plus you’re really like able. Honest, down to earth, kind. You know, the opposite of drama. :o)
laceykeigley
That’s very nice of you.
What do I mean by drama? I think I mean – I feel like I’m a lot of work. Like – I take a lot of effort.
I guess, truthfully, the better word for what I meant would be baggage.
Because I actually don’t care for drama in relationships. It’s not fun. And I’m not drawn to it. In fact, I look for people with less of it.