“I am not the same person as I was yesterday or the day before. I don’t like long distances of time if this is to be an important or deep friendship. I am always grasping for new knowledge. I get excited about new things whether it is as simple as a morning sunrise that had me in awe or if I finally cracked open a tiny bit of a mystery I am experiencing. I like to tell someone. I like to tell someone who is knows me and knows my journey, someone who ENJOYS that excitement in me over silly new things. Time off pours over the depth we have. My soul interrupts it as you not trusting me with your everyday. So the internal dialogue says, ‘Keep it to yourself.’ That is why I treat this relationship as if we are beginning,” she said in frustration.
“Wait a sec! I still don’t understand. Aren’t we good friends? We have depth. I share with you things I wouldn’t share with another,” he said with a intensity.
“To me there has to be a long friendship before I can just pick up where I left off. I have a high school friend and several college friends where I can just pick up where I left off. Each of those friends has 4 years at the very least of constant friendship. I can pick up where I left off because time and space have relocated their lives to different parts of the world. I still have to back track to get some of their story but we always have the memories to hold us together. I am sure they have changed a ton but we are comfortable. With you the time is too short. There are no memories to hold us together,” she explains.
“So you don’t trust me?” His voice goes deeper.
“I trust you but not like I would the friendships I have had for a long period of time. They have had the time to test them. They are proven. I know where I stand and I am comfortable with the flow of give and take,” she replies.
This friendship ended. They were too different. She never really felt comfortable spiritually. She felt like she was talking a different language. He could never understand. The ‘different language’ was an important step for her to grasp but for right now I think there is another learning here.
I see time as an important element of trust and even depth. Even knowing how to pace myself at the beginning of a relationship can have a huge effect on trust in a relationship.
I have a bad habit to jumping in with a ton of gusto. I like to get the nitty gritty. My ears pick up ‘long distance talk’ only to find out later there wasn’t much nor could there be much depth to it. They might have meant it well but it just could not be.
I am learning how to build the trust I need. I don’t believe in ‘seasons’ more on that later- one quickie here, if you believe friends come for a season and then over, aren't you setting it up to fail?) , rather I believe I have set relationships up for failure because I did not lay down a way for trust to come inside like installation for a house. I keep talking trust because I have a bad habit of not being able to say what I am really feeling. I know that is an issue. Not ready to deal with it yet because I don’t know how I am going to speak up for myself when I am ultra sensitive about ‘rudeness’ or ‘bossiness’. Exact words are how do you speak up for yourself when it runs the risk of telling someone how to feel or how to see things or tells them to back off or tells them to get lost or I need air. I have had too many losses in friendship department. I am tired of ‘fighting’ and having the other person all up in my tail feathers about how wrong I am for standing up about a problem or upset at me at pointing to an issue. It isn’t about who is right or wrong. IT IS AN ISSUE ABOUT HOW STRONG YOU WANT A RELATIONSHIP! Backing out gracefully seemed to be the right way, until they got all up in my tail feathers again! I cannot win. Again it comes to trust and HOW STRONG YOU WANT A RELATIONSHIP. I cannot shake that trust thing... must be something there...
I would have rather said that I have enough ‘pick-up-where-you-left-friendships’ and that I am at a point in my life where I need a deep, meaningful, valued friendship, but as I am writing out or more exactly clearing up my thoughts, I see a path opening up for me. I will keep writing more here. I am learning more about myself. I just might learn how to be a good friend to myself as well as others. In time though…
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