A Charges Leveled Introspective – you’ll find this boring

Friendships are an ever changing. Oh wait, you knew that didn’t you? My mom has always said I collect little lambs to take under my wing; to nourish, offer an occasional shoulder, to support. But I think it is what I get from the relationships that are important to me. The feeling of importance to another person, the give and take of thoughts, frivolities, humor, sorrow, and each other.

Through out my life, “best friends” or “bestest friends” have come and gone. What did I do? What didn’t I do? And how much should either side of a relationship have to deal with? In reality I don’t think it is any of these things.

I recently lost a bestest friend. We’d been buds for seven internet years, lived 2500 miles apart, spoke on the phone on occasion, and supported each other. We never met face to face. There were things about her I didn’t like, but the good out weighed the bad. There were things about me she didn’t like. See it’s a balance, the eternal give and take. And each time it is over I tell myself, “I won’t have another best friend, it hurts too much.” What a lie I tell myself. Despite being shy, I am a social person.

The good thing that comes of losing a best/bestest friend is the introspective period that follows. Considering all that has been said, can not be taken back, that will inevitably change who I was, shaping who I will morph into. Consideration of the charges:

1) That I always have to have the last word. I don’t believe that to be true, on the other hand most of my friends do not have to either, so it is a weird balance of last words.
2) That I can’t take a joke. My second husband said, as we were separating our lives and parting our ways, two things. 1) I have no sense of humor 2) I have no personality. Of all the things he said to me, besides I love you and good-bye, these have had the longest lasting impact on me. The I love you was a lie; good-bye has been long lasting and the truth; items 1 and 2 haunt me. So when my former bestest said I can’t take a joke, it rung like a death knell in the air. Maybe I can’t take a joke, I forever doubt myself or that I am not being understood and often let people know “that was a joke.”
3) That I run away pouting. I know that is not true. In the unspoken situation I left before I said words I could not take back. I do not intentionally speak words that will hurt. I do not enter into most arguments when both parties are mad; one of us needs to be grounded in calm.
4) And apparently I was throwing a temper tantrum. Hmmm, I guess a third party would have to decide that, and I’m not asking her to step into the middle of this, although I was accused of talking behind my bestest back, because I apologized to a third party about what was happening and told them I would be leaving if it continued. To her that talking about her verifies everything
5) I was also told that I critiqued others so harshly that I drove people away, and at least one person left in tears several times because of what I said. Of all the charges leveled at me, this one was the most serious to me. I have always tried to measure my critiques with a level of positive ness. So do I stand in judgment of the works of others that I am cutting and cruel? This will colour the way I look at the work of others and my critique for them for sometime. I have always tried to give two positive comments for every negative or comment of correction. Especially in poetry. Poetry is subjective, the levels of writing poetry are specific to the poet, as is the penchant of specific rhyme schemes. A five meter, every line rhyming scheme drives me crazy, but each poet has their own level of security, I in the past had commented on that, but in recent years only comment when I poet steps out of their personal comfort zone and ventures into their uncharted waters. It takes a lot of guts to do so.
6) That no one would give me input on my work, because I keep needing to be right.
Beyond asinine – I have no comment on this.
7) And her final salvo, beside I am not worth her time and effort was this, that I will write about our falling out. Hmmm she was defiantly right on that one. It took me time to think about it, consider, and weigh the words, intent, and content; to use the truths and throw out the superfluous, then to evolve from it. Writing about it helps me put it all in perspective, work it out. She will never read it, because she doesn’t blog, she doesn’t care, and I realize – because she is in self protect mode and defensive.

I will learn and grow from this. I will have more best friends (because I am a glutton that way,) but she will always hold a place in my thoughts and heart, for she was like a sister to me. Because she (and her influence) is part of who I will become tomorrow. I wish her the best, I wish for her someone who will understand her better than I did. I wish for her peace and good writing.

Sith