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Mourning Friendships

Mourning Friendships

Mourning Relationships

In my 35 years of living, I’ve had to mourn the deaths of friendships that I thought were strong. Whether it was from elementary school, high school or college, or through jobs, losing someone that you consider a friend is never easy. Especially when there is no big blow out fight from it all. In the day and age of social media, friendships can be over with the simple click of the “unfriend” or “unfollow” button. Blocking, hiding, unfollowing, they are all ways that we can end the pain of having our feelings hurt in a very public space. 

I’m sure that I’m more sensitive to this aspect beause February is a month of mourning for me. My sister. A mentor from church. So many others, that the loss of people who I thought were friends just seems to exacerbate the feeling of grief. 

Then I get a grip. 

Or I cry. It just depends on the day. 

No matter how much I try to convince myself that I’m okay with people not liking me, or stopping their conversation with me because of disagreements or things that they’ve heard or even nothing at all, there is still a small, or medium, or large part of me that hates it. I start wondering what I did wrong, or what I could have done better. I start rethinking how I’m treating all of my other friends, or worse yet, I retreat. Retreating seems to be the easiest thing to do, when all I want to do is scream. Knowing that conversations are happening regarding you. Getting passive aggressive comments from folks attached to the friendship lost. Adulthood sometimes screams another level of junior high. Now with mortgages and high heels. 

It’s hard to admit that a friendship has died. Mostly because all you can think about are all of the GREAT things that happened during the “alive” time. Or maybe you think about secrets that may be shared, in anger. In frustration. Maybe you even think about how much the other person may be hurting at the loss too, and feeling a sense of pride at that. Or you just don’t know WHAT to feel, except like a failure. Defeated. Not worthy. 

Currently, I’m on like week 26 of phoning two of my friends. They never answer. They don’t text, they don’t even acknowledge that they have received any of my phone calls or messages. That kind of hurts. I don’t even have words poetic enough to make it sound nice. Do I know that they may be busy? Yep. But when you can SEE that they are interacting with others on a regular basis, and not just for work, it puts you in a bit of a bind, right? Immediately thoughts of my inadequacy comes up, and well, that leads to just bad results. 

See, I attempt to be who I want folks to be to me. It doesn’t always work. Heck, it seems to never work and then I think that I may be forced to follow Mr. Houseful around and drive him nuts too. So I find things to do. Places to volunteer. Things to become totally focused on so that little, or medium, or large part of me doesn’t hurt from the inside so much. 

To attempt to alleviate this, I’ve taken back to reading my Bible. Oh yes, this is going to have a biblical ending to it. Becoming focused on being a better person, and not totally putting my self worth into what others think of me. Learning to come out of my shell and make new friends. <- Guys. THIS is the hardest thing for me. Speaking in front of crowds. No biggie. Talking and teaching a large group of folks wanting to learn CPR. Piece of cake. Opening myself up enough to trust someone with my feelings this late in life. HATE IT! I use the Bible App YouVersion, and there are all of these plans that you can read. I’ve chosen many, but the Friendship plan is one that I’m focusing on and studying, because I want to show myself friendly, and not always have to mourn so many deaths of friendships. 

God often works through the people we have in our lives. So who are your friends? What kind of friend are you to others? This seven-day plan will show you the true nature of friendships and the blessing God provides through friendship.

The other passage that really spoke to my heart was the devotion from the reading plan. It’s like it was written specifically for me. 

Very few people want to spend their life without friends. It has been said that if you end up with five really close friends over the course of your life that you should consider yourself to be really blessed. Think about it. How many really close friends do you have? I am not talking about acquaintances. I am talking about friends that know everything about you and still love you and vice versa. True friendship is a gift and should be treated that way. So, what if you don’t have many friends? God’s Word offers advice on the type of friends you should have and what kind of person you need to be to get good friends. Having a best friend is a great thing!

I don’t think that ANY man should be an island. I also don’t think that couples should only have each other for friends. It’s not healthy. You get TIRED of hanging with the same person day in and day out. I think that laughter is good, and I think that having someone that you can confide in is amazing. I just don’t have as many of those people as I thought I did. Or do I? 

A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17:22

So, I leave you with this, and with an ask. Mourn those friendships, but don’t let them get to a place of atrophy in the first place if you can help it. You don’t want those bones to dry up. 

 

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Kari

Thursday 2nd of March 2017

I can relate to this so much. I love you, friend. I'm so glad you're in my life. I just want you to know this.

And by the way, I always text back if you want to talk. ❤

Aletha

Saturday 17th of December 2016

I understand this and am grateful to have read your thought. I just realized a friendship I had was completely dead... like I think what i was seeing was the corpse after the bloating went down and thouht out friendship was sleeping when in fact it needed to be on the body farm somewhere... :-( it was sad and painful and although I said my usual tough lady "whatever", I wondered why my friend felt so threatened or neglected or whatever she was feeling to lie and boycott being friends and never talk to me. It was especially shocking because I had helped her so many times. Now I look back at her always trying to up my birthday parties (i love in one of those places. It is so crazy.) and stuff and I think I am so blind. she is stay at home and I work full time. I am single and she is married. We are neighbors, but it still affected me to go say goodbye as we are moving away and see her take this last moment to try to hurt me. To pretend she was busy... like a lunatic... I am happy to know we arent friends, but I am sad to have lost a friend... even if I were unaware that it ever happened. It is juvenile of her but it still makes me feel sad. I will give myself a week or so... I am not mourning a liar for longer than that.

I am sorry this happened to you, too. Thank you for sharing. It makes one feel less alone with this junior high stuff happening in the lives of grown people.

Aletha

Saturday 17th of December 2016

please excuse the typing errors... it should say I live in one of those areas.... and other things....

Angie

Monday 7th of March 2016

I relate to this. :( It's very hard. Love to you as you mourn. I'm mourning too. <3

Arnebya

Thursday 25th of February 2016

It's easy to say it's their loss, I know. But truly, it is, and that's how you have to think about it. Friendships needs nurturing, even if you only speak infrequently. I get fading away or evolving, but when that happens, offer me the opportunity to change with you, or at least tell me that you can no longer maintain our friendship, for whatever reason. Have I hurt you and didn't know? Did you feel ignored and I didn't know? Sometimes it's a two-way street, but when attempts are made with no response, it seems purposely hurtful.

Brandie

Tuesday 23rd of February 2016

I'm sorry about friends not calling back. It's hard and frustrating. And I'd rather a friendship end in a big fight (then I know why) then when it slowly fades away and you don't know why. I'm really awkward in friendships so I always imagine the friendship was faded because of me, which makes me more awkward! But sometimes life just pulls us differently, and it doesn't hurt any less then (at least for me)

Mrs. Houseful

Wednesday 24th of February 2016

Brandie,

You hit the nail on the head. Not knowing why a friendship dies is almost as excruciating as having one die in the first place.

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