love of local in Utah
Making Friends As a Grown Woman by Emily Hill
A life lesson I refuse to learn
…
It seems even older women, who we know are nearly perfect, have lessons to learn. You’d think everything we needed to know we’d have learned in kindergarten, but apparently making friends is an ongoing learning process. And some lessons are harder to learn than others.
Last May I wrote a post in response to a tweet by my dear friend Vanessa. Titled “Make new friends but keep the old…,” it addressed Vanessa’s question: When do you know it’s time to let certain relationships go?
My answer: When you find you’re putting way more effort into the relationship than she is…and it’s been that way for a few years. Here’s a brief excerpt from the original post:
So when it comes to a relationship with a good friend, how do you know it’s time to cut ties and move on? (Don’t worry, if you’re reading this post there’s a 99.9 percent chance it’s not you.) Of course you have the obvious signs like continuous bickering, unkindness, hurtful words and actions. But what about a relationship that is wonderful when you two are together or chatting on the phone, yet those times are occurring less often as the months (and years) go by?
Oh, and I forgot to mention you are the one working to maintain the friendship because you love the other person dearly and just can’t seem to throw in the towel. … For the longest time you tell yourself to stop calling. Stop making the effort. But it’s so dang hard when she’s one of your closest friends…and yet, is she? It’s like the boyfriend you can’t break up with because when it’s good, it’s really, really good but more often than not it’s really, really lame.
And the lameness has to stop. … I can no longer waste my time, energy and cell phone minutes trying to keep this friendship going, especially when all it does is make me sad to do so.
Guess what? I still haven’t learned my lesson. I find myself calling her, leaving a voicemail and then (surprise!) feeling disappointed when she doesn’t return my call. My heart broke a little this year when we received their Christmas card without a handwritten note. When the kids had Christmas vacation, I wanted to call her and ask if we could get our girls together for a play date or go on a long-overdue girls’ night out. It took all my willpower not to do so.
What is wrong with me? I have lots of “new” fabulous friends—and plenty of “old” ones—so you’d think I could move on. But sadly, I can’t. I still hope. I still call. And I still wait for her to somehow let me know I matter to her.
Maybe I should go back to sniffing glue. This life lesson sucks.
Beautiful Emily blogs over at IsThisReallyMyLife.com and she is lucky enough to really have that as her life 😉
