I have a friend who recently told me that things feel hard when we interact. I didn’t necessarily disagree with her at all, but it didn’t feel like a casual observation of our relationship. It felt like an accusation. It felt like I was being told I am difficult. Fifty percent of that feeling came from how things have gone to date and fifty percent came from a place of insecurity. It was a mixed bag of reactions. Or a big ol bag of shit. Depends on your perspective I suppose.
The first thing I had to do was consider how harmful those words felt to me. Truly. My heart hurt and also, I was embarrassed. I don’t want to be a problematic friend. I don’t want to be someone where there’s stories. I don’t want things to be messy and then have a story about me, about us. Sure, relationships take work and there are going to difficult moments, but those “normal” relationships aren’t categorized as hard. They are what they are, relationships.
I also had to do something that I rarely do, or have not really done much in my life. I had to really absorb what was being said to me. I knew that this friend would caveat what was said. There would be an explanation or a disclaimer or words to soften the blow of that statement. I had to work like hell to hold onto the thing that was actually said. I had to take it in and remember that it wasn’t the first time this person had said that to me. At all. It was actually the third or fourth time.
That’s right. I had been told on numerous occasions that things were hard with me. I’ll come back to this, but I need to move on for a heartbeat so I can circle back in a way that makes sense.
The next thing I had to do was self-reflect. Was I being difficult? Am I being too challenging? Am I asking too much? Am I expecting too much? The answer to most of those questions is ‘yes’ but, with that said, there is something bigger to consider. What? Well, there is the foot note of ‘for this relationship’ or ‘for this person’, or at least that’s what came to mind. I have to really get to the bottom of whether that’s true.
That’s the digging deep part of the self-reflection. Is there something about the interaction that I’m not proud of? Is there something about the interaction that I’d like to change or work on? Is there something about the interaction that I want to move away from? This part of the inner search can be dangerous. If you have insecurities or have had bad experiences, this is the exact time when you might start to question yourself. You might start to think that everything you do i wrong and therefore, you are clearly fucking things up and thus, it’s time for you to start to patch over the broken bits.
No. I mean sure, you might be acting like a fool or childish. You might also be completely fine and rather, this exploration tells you that you are just not meshing with this other human. You may have to admit that you have run into a situation of irreconcilable differences.
I did, in this situation. My heart was heavy and my mind swirling as I told myself that I wasn’t sure the friendship was working anymore. I was able to admit that some part of my behavior wasn’t my most favorite or proudest moments. I was also able to tell myself that a bigger part of the problem is that we have outgrown each other as friends. We were bound together during a time when things were kind of shitty in our lives and that shared pain is what allowed us to block out everything that is incompatible. I thought, on some level, that in the absence of the thing that bound us, we could find a way.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes that happens. Right? People meet at grief groups or in online groups or through work scenarios and even when that commonality vanishes, they still have enough good stuff there to keep things going. And sometimes, that’s not the case.
We were slinging barbs at each other about the other changing, but I don’t think either of us had really changed. Not really. I think we were just able to see clearly who we are, without the fog of our grief. I’m not saying that her perception of me is way off. I’m telling you that where she is concerned, I feel difficult, and our friendship feels too hard. It felt easier when it was, well, almost necessary. When the friendship was a bond used for external healing, issues could be set aside for the greater good. When that need was lessened by time and situation, the issues were less pliable.
The last part of that whole situation that was really painful, outside of the realization itself, was resisting the urge to defend myself. I had to accept the fact that it’s not necessary to shift her view on me. I could have a human who was living out there in the world and who found me difficult to befriend. That’s okay. I don’t need to sugar coat that point or shift things in any way. I was able to be wholly respectful of her feelings. I was able to take a step back and tell myself that it’s okay if she thinks I’m difficult or a relationship with me is hard. That’s really okay. I don’t need to correct the record.
We do this a lot. As humans, we desire to set things straight when we believe we’ve been slandered in some fashion. We want people to know the pain they’ve caused us. We want the world to know how hard we tried to make things work. We want everyone to acknowledge that we did everything we could to make things good.
And so, rather than accepting what someone says or does, we work really fucking hard to make ourselves look good. It’s a thing. We want to be able to look at a third party and tell them that we worked our ass off trying to make everything all good. It just isn’t feasible, that’s all.
Unnecessary. I know that the friend I’m talking about here has a heart that drives her to fix things. I know that she wants to make nice and retain her connections. I mean, who doesn’t? But, that’s not enough. At all. More is needed. Always more.
x
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 