a village

Self-proclaiming yourself as the “tell it like it is” friend is not your excuse to speak reckelessly nor abrasively to anyone that you consider a friend. Again, I repeat, self-proclaiming yourself as the “tell it like it is” friend is NOT your excuse to speak recklessly nor abrasively to anyone that you consider a friend. By all means tell it to me like it is, but if it isn’t coming from a place of love or in an attempt to polarize a situation, don’t tell it to me at all. Check your own baggage. Let me go deeper.

These last six months have been a lesson and labor in love/self-love, loss, loyalty, friendship and moving on. In the midst of my breakdown, I forced those around me to subject themselves to the the lenghty range of emotions I suffered through. There were days when I didn’t have the will to live and just wanted to stay in my bed hoping I would soon wakeup from the nightmare my life had become. I went days without eating, working from home in seclusion and distancing myself from the friends who felt the need to put a time limit on my mourning period. Fortunately, I had a village that rallied around me and refused to let me disappear into an absyss of darkness. But in that village there were many different citizens. There were the townsmen who flooded me with loving words and encouragement. The ones who checked on me daily, came and just sat silently with me while I processed things, and those who let me use them as a sounding board for my frustrations. Then there were the loyalist, my ride or dies, my voices of reason and those who would stop me in my tracks when I said something even remotely negative about myself. They spoke a truth that allowed me to take off my rose colored glasses and helped me to see my situation for how it really was. I hadn’t lost shit, not a motherfucking thing… But then there was another category of people. Far and few in between, but still there, those telling me to get over it, those asking me why I was still talking about my issues and those who felt confident enough to tell me their painful renditions of truth. Get over it, don’t worry about somebody who doesn’t give a damn about you, he’s moved on, you need to as well, he doesn’t want you, he considered you something he would be settling for…

It took me some time to realize that people can only meet you where they are at, not from where you want them to be. People relate to you through their own experiences, insecurities, trauma and hurt. During my hard times I know I triggered a lot of hurt in a lot of other people. They were forced to relive their trauma and in return it caused them to handle me differently. It’s hard to be a friend to someone going through something that reopens all of your own unhealed wounds. And that is ok. I learned to restrict myself in having conversations with those people. It hurt me at first that they weren’t able to embrace me, but then I realized in doing so they were hurting themselves. I learned those are not the ones I lean on, nor should I expect them to receive me the way I want them to or how other people are able to. In being a friend, that sort of discernment is important…

Everyone plays in a different role in the dynamics of friendship. Just be certain that you are checking your own stuff at the door before you speak. Think about what you are saying, your intent, your motivation. Are you saying something that you wish somebody had told you? Are you projecting? Are you using this moment of weakness to say whatever you feel because otherwise you wouldn’t have the opportunity to do so? Or do you genuinely feel that your choice of words are beneficial? People are entitled to their own opinions, but people are not entitled to speak to you anyway they feel in the name of being “that” friend. There is a difference and in protecting your space and the people you let in it, you must pay attention.