This year has been one of reflection. In 2019 I had to make some tough decisions related to my relationships with people that were extremely difficult to make. I wrestled with these choices for the better part of this past year and POOF just like that, my validation was served to me on a silver platter. Let me share with you what I’m referring to…
Things got really tight after I decided to exit stage left on one of my oldest friendships. I wanted to keep the lines open in hopes that things would smooth themselves out over time, but the subliminal digs on Facebook were a lot and I found myself wanting to defend my choice to strangers (which is never a good thing), so I thought it would be best to pull the plug on all social media connections. However, you know even when connections are severed you still hear stuff through the grapevine… So guess what... I’m documenting said tea on my online journal. MY OLDEST FRIEND DUN HAD ANOTHER BABY! Lordt. When I tell you that was all that I needed to hear to drop the weight of the guilt I felt leaving the friendship, that was it. I know it doesn’t make sense… But the timeline… that’s why. I love the saying that the best apology is changed behavior, and her dropping this fresh baby off in the world in a matter of ELEVEN MONTHS after we stopped talking revealed that she ain’t changed one bit.
She has always been someone that has had very strict goals for herself, she is determined and doesn’t let anyone or anything get in the way of those goals, which in many settings can be seen as an admirable characteristic, and in many ways it is. Being a Mom was definitely one of those things. It pained me to watch her persist with this because of how emotionally and physically absent her husband was. But, I know my friend, and knew that she gets what she wants, so I just tried my best to be supportive and loving and fill in the gaps that her husband would leave. I know I wouldn’t have been able to emotionally handle the idea of her bringing yet another life into this world with a man that I find to be cruel and repulsive. Our friendship wouldn’t have survived this second pregnancy for sure. It was hard enough the first go round. And believe me, this isn’t an instance of her telling me too much about the dynamics of her relationship and me not being able to let go or forgive. I’m more of an actions person, and through this “break up” between her and I I’ve learned that she tends to tell a very curated version of events. She did it to her Facebook friends when I first told her my intentions of walking away from our friendship, and she did it again to a mutual friend (I will discuss this in detail later). I am basing my feelings of her husband on the actions that I personally witnessed. He left her to raise her child (financially, physically and emotionally) for the better part of a year…BY HERSELF. That’s hard for me to stomach. I watched someone I love be abandoned by her husband, and watched someone she loved abandon their child. A child that in no way, shape, or form even asked to be here. That was so hard. I sat in her child’s one year birthday party and watched her husband perform for everyone in the room like he was the most upstanding husband and father, when his kid barely even recognized him. Sharing the same space with him at that point almost made me physically ill. But I’m of the mind of “if you like it I love it” and I wanted to stand by and support my friend and her child because I love them, I had no clue how much of a toll that would take on me emotionally. It was shortly after that I knew that I loved them both but I couldn’t participate in my friend’s life choices much longer. They were always her choices to make, but I was no longer including myself in the narrative. Honestly in my heart of hearts I’m just hopeful that her husband needed that year away for himself so that he could be better and commit to his family again. I really hope that this new baby is in an environment that is healthy and nurturing, and that my friend, her husband, and their two children are thriving. I want this soooo badly that the idea of it makes me smile from ear to ear. I hope that me deciding to remove myself from their lives allowed more room for her to pour into them in ways she wouldn’t have been able to if I were around, I hope me leaving no longer enabled her from ultimately getting what she truly wanted. However, the patterns of their behavior lead me to believe that might not be the case.
Hearing the news of baby number two showed me that even her losing “the most important person” is not enough to warrant changed behavior, or steer her off of the path that she had planned for herself. It validated for me that me and my needs would never have room, because she wouldn’t make room for them, especially if they didn’t align with what she wanted for herself… This was something that I didn’t want to believe and had chosen to ignore and doing so just no longer felt good. Now don’t get me wrong, I ain’t asking to be #1… ESPECIALLY when you have a husband and children, but making the effort to make room is something that I demand in all of my relationships. There are few times when I truly NEED support from my friends… and for her to be so absent over the past five years and for me to justify it but hold everyone else to a higher standard was no longer something that I felt good about doing any more. I knew once I sent that email it would be done. I knew because I know my friend… and I know that she doesn’t fight for anything that isn’t in line with her vision. The husband, the family, the children, THAT was her vision. One that she has fought for, for almost two decades, because it aligned with what she felt her life was supposed to look like. In spite of the plethora of red flags. And I was right there fighting with her, picking up the pieces and standing in the gap, knowing that she was incapable of reciprocity, but loving her and pouring into her anyway. I thought that was what friendship was supposed to look like for us, but when I no longer felt good about the choices that I was making, I knew it was time to let go. In hindsight losing me was an easy loss for her because although having a friend is nice, it isn’t part of the picture that she painted for herself… I was very much disposable. Our relationship was not something that I viewed as disposable. Having friends is something that I value in the same ways that I value having a loving husband and how I would value having a child/children. Though they will never be equal, I place value on all of those things. I knew it wasn’t possible at that time for her to ever consider me in the ways that I considered her because our value system just wasn’t in sync in that way. I was hoping that one day it MIGHT be possible, and who knows… maybe one day it will be. But as of right now, I was proven wrong.
It took me this past year to finally realize what my “spoon in the sink” moment was when it came to our friendship. I THOUGHT it was when she straight up lied to me about her intentions. That was it. I just knew at that moment that we had been performing intimacy because if we were truly close she wouldn’t have felt she had to lie to me about WHY she wanted to move to Israel. I knew it was always an end goal, she had expressed that, but the WHY she shared with me was because it was safer, when I KNEW the why was really that she wanted to try and make her family work. Which was her choice, and I would have respected that, hell, we probably could have even remained friends… But the lie, it was the lie that hurt me most of all. I know it seems so small, but that’s why these “spoon in the sink” moments are so significant. You truly never know what your last straw will be. I now realize that that was the pre-cursor, but that wasn’t what REALLY set it off. I have to provide the back story for this to make sense…
I was in a group chat with my friend, her sister and a friend of theirs that I met through them. I realize now that my true spoon in the sink moment was when their friend came in the chat and was expressing the things that I didn’t even realize that I was feeling. She was talking about how she doesn’t feel like the chat is a place that serves her anymore, and I totally understood that sentiment. It felt like we were performing friendship and people were drifting further and further apart. Their friend and I hadn’t really had a relationship outside of them, and I reached out to see how she was because I knew how deeply she cared for them, and to get some more insight into what prompted what seemed like an abrupt decision. She expressed to me that she had been feeling this way for a while and her saying that in a way forced me to face my feelings head on. At that moment I wasn’t ready to let go emotionally, I was still talking through my feelings with my therapist and was hoping to have more clarity over the next few weeks/months. The true spoon in the sink moment was not too long after that when I saw a message that my friend sent that made me question EVERYTHING. My friend removed their friend from the group and said “I removed her because she said she didn’t want to be me and my sister’s friend anymore because we are single Mom’s.” This statement set my antenna’s off because when I had a conversation with their friend that is not what she said at all… and even in the group she explained and that is not what I took from it. It made me think about how many times in the past that I might have taken my friend’s words as law and had been manipulated. Had I not had that side convo with their friend I would have listened to what my friend said, believed it, and cut their friend off, even though she wouldn’t have deserved that, because the things that my friend said were not what was said at all. It made me think about all of the other times in the past that my friend might have amended the truth so that she appeared a certain way, and how many times I might have reacted based on those lies. I didn’t like the idea of being manipulated in that way. It was at that moment that I knew I too had the cut ties, even though I didn’t feel ready. THAT was my true spoon in the sink moment.
Honestly as I reflect upon this past year I think about how we might have still been friends. Even after I saw her shape shifting the truth on her social media attempting to villainize me for sympathy and various other attention seeking behaviors. I totally could have gotten past that if she could just have been honest with me. I do not expect “radical honesty” in all of my relationships. If she would’ve said she didn’t feel comfortable sharing why she truly wanted to move back to Israel with me, I would have accepted that. But, to have someone lie to you that calls you sister and their closest friend is very hurtful, especially when you KNOW they’re lying. That was the moment that showed me that after all these years we were simply performing closeness, because although EYE would have felt comfortable being candid about my intentions, or expressing to her why I didn’t want to share my intentions, I saw that she was not, and what is the point of this if we can’t be real with each other?
I am not going to lie I still struggle with the idea that she is suffering in silence, and I am not there to support her through it all, but I mean ultimately I didn’t do THAT much, if anything I was just a listening ear. BUT, mothering two children under three with a full time job in a PANDEMIC is no hoe. But then I think about the fact that choices have consequences, and ultimately this had to be what she truly wanted, and as a result was willing to handle all the consequences that came with this choice. It is just hard thinking about the idea that someone you love might be having a hard time. But, she could very well be happy, and just because her life doesn’t align with what I want, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t fulfilled and content. I am rooting for her from the sidelines and am happy to see that she is continuing to manifest what she wanted for her life ever since I’ve known her, even if that means I am not part of the equation. I realized that me walking away from the friendship had very little to do with her, and everything to do with me. I simply could not be the friend that she wanted or needed anymore. She wanted a cosigner and someone who would support her through her choices. She wanted a cheerleader and though that was a role that I happily filled for almost three decades I did not want to spend this part of my life with her being a cheerleader. Once I saw that being that for her was taking its toll on my mental health, that is when I knew what had to be done. This year has validated that I made the right choice a year ago today, she is moving on with her life, and I am going to assume happy and full, which makes me feel good. I chose myself, and she chose her fairy tale, and that is okay.