Friendships Best Or Otherwise

Today’s Attire:  I’m wearing a burnt orange cotton tank top (Banana Republic $6) under a black jersey knit asymmetrical cardigan with lace opening in the back (White House Black Market $38) and black knee length walking shorts (Ashley Stewart $19) accessorized with a orange leather sandals with gold stud detail (Macy’s $26).

Outfit Justification: It’s still warm and shorts are definitely in order.  The tank top compliments my new sandals.  I put the black cardigan on because it’s cold in my office and I don’t look like I strolled in in a tank top, shorts and sandals in the office. I made an effort to be at least a little appropriate.

Random Rant: This heat is kicking my ass. The reason why there was no blog yesterday is because I had the world’s worse headache, that I’ve been trying to fight off for 4 days, and I finally succumbed. I was able to do nothing for hours but sit in a dark room and try to sleep. I still have a bit of a dull headache, but I’m able to somewhat function. Consequentially there is no picture. Sorry Beck.

Friendships Best or Otherwise:

I love my friends.  My friends mean as much to me as my family does. Maybe it’s because I’m an only child I feel this way.  But I do.  Over the years I have had the pleasure of calling some amazing people in my life friends.  In more recent years I’ve had to examine my relationships with the people in my life and decide if I need to make some changes.  As I approach the age of 40 I’m really beginning to do something I’ve never done: severing ties with people I call friends.  I’ll get to that in a moment.

I have a few people I call my best friend.  In my life they’ve proved to be such. I don’t just have one.  One could argue with my definition with of best friend if they want to, it’s not about their definition. It’s about mine. This is from my perspective, and I will define best friend as I see fit.  The friends that I call best friends are closer than just close friends.

The first best friend that I have is my husband Jeff. This man knows me better than I know myself.  Even though we haven’t been together as long, the connection we share is so very evident.  In temperament we’re the opposite.  I’m the outgoing loud one. He’s the more reserved and sometimes socially awkward one. When we first started dating we broke a lot of “rules”. On our second date I laid everything out in the open. I told him the brutal and honest truth about my flaws and negative characteristics.  My intent that night was to send him running for the hills. He didn’t run.  He countered with his own shortcomings.  Our relationship has been based on this brutal honest open communications ever since. Having this open communication has made me the happiest I’ve ever been in any relationship. We’re not the perfect couple. We fight. We get on each other’s nerves.  But we make up.  We look beyond the petty stuff that annoys us. We’re a team. We laugh a lot at really dumb stuff. We have fun. I couldn’t ask for a better friend or husband.

I can’t go through all of my best friends because frankly that would take awhile.  My best friend Becky and I have been friends since sophomore year of high school. I used to say that I wanted to be Becky when I grow up, even though I’m technically an adult. We’re a very unlikely pair.  We’ve gotten into more trouble than I care to admit.  This friendship is the friendship that could.  Again we’re opposites. She’s reserved. I’m the outgoing one.  Our friendship has survived one of us living across the country for years, new boyfriends, breakups, marriage, divorce, illness and pregnancy.  We had our share of fights. But I know this girl will always be there for me in the end. And vice versa.  We don’t see each other very often despite living in the same city, but that bond is always there.

As I mentioned above, in recent years I’ve had to sever ties with people who I called friends. This has been one of the hardest things ever I’ve done.  I’m used to friendships running their course and then drifting apart but not making a conscience effort to break the bond that ties us together, that’s new to me. Unfortunately it’s been a very necessary step in my life recently.  I have a tendency to get drawn into my friend’s problems. I want to do what I can to help them through their tough time, because I would hope they would do the same for me.  After going through a major battle with depression, then talking to a therapist about me and my issues, I started to notice that I had some pretty toxic people in my life. They were beginning to drag me down. They were negative. They were constantly consumed with drama.

The thing that was pointed out to me by my therapist and even my mom is that some of the people were jealous of me. This is a foreign concept to me. I don’t understand why anyone would be jealous of me. I know that some jealousy is human nature I get that. But I’m not anything out of the ordinary.  I grew up poor and I’m still poor. I have issues, like everyone else. At least I’m happy when my friends are happy. But I started to notice that when good things happen for me they weren’t so pleased for me. I started to notice things like one friend who was competing with me for attention on a regular basis.  And when she started to lose weight, and I consequently started to gain weight, she actually said to me “I don’t have to be jealous of your curves any more”. Why would you say that to anyone? Especially if you’ve dealt with weight issues your entire life. After a while every conversation was “woe as me”. She was negative about everything, and everything was about her. She complained about everything and when I suggested things for her to do remedy her issues, she never did anything. All she wanted to do was complain. And every event she was invited to she wanted to make it about her. It was really hard to maintain a friendship with all of that negativity.   

I had another friend tell me that I will never be successful as a singer because I’m full of insecurities, most of them reality based. This person said this to me just days before I auditioned for The Voice the first time.  This was from someone who I had loved very much. When he called me I was there for him, every time.  When I fell ill, this friend didn’t even contact me to see if I needed anything. No contact, nothing. When I finally saw him he showed up high on cocaine at my birthday party and barely spoke to me. I discovered he was no longer the person who was my friend. He’d been replaced by someone who valued alcohol and cocaine, and chose to surround himself with people who valued the same things. The demise of that friendship makes my heart ache.

Thinking about how these people once meant so much to me and have turned into toxic people who say and do toxic things hurts my heart.  In the past I would have overlooked this and try to repair this. But as another good friend pointed out to me a few months ago, “You’re a precious commodity. As you get closer to 40, you need to surround yourself with people who will support you and promote you and your successes. Toxic people bring you down.”  I’m embracing that. I’m letting go of the toxic people. It’s a painful process, but it’s necessary.

As I sit here writing this, I think about all the people I’ve encountered over the years. And I reflect on the people who have recently entered in my life who have brought so much joy to my life.  I may not see these people everyday, or talk to them everyday, but they send me encouraging messages via email, texts for Facebook comments.  I’m so blessed to have so many good people in my life now. When I was sick all those months, these people were praying for me and sending me well wishes. These are the people enrich my life and in turn I want to enrich their lives as much as I can.  To you, my friends, I thank you for being in my life and making it just that much better. Know that you mean something to someone and you’ve touched them in a positive way.