I've been mourning the loss of a friendship this week. I feel incredibly sad and truly feel the loss in my soul.
Since the spring, communication slowed then ceased. I called, emailed, texted and all efforts were met with silence. I chalked it up to busy-ness, although in my heart of heart, I'm sure I knew our friendship was over.
In the fall, I endured a very tragic, personal crisis. This was the first friend I called. Silence had never hurt so much. With all the pain, I had to compartmentalize and the friendship was tucked away.
In recent months, I allowed my thoughts to wander to cutting ties. Out of anger, I stopped following on twitter and instagram. Petty, I know. Facebook was the last frontier, so to speak. To me, unfriending on FB is the ultimate 'eff you', the end all. While on FB last week, I discovered I'd been unfriended. Body blow! I cried behind the closed door of my office. I didn't think it was coming to THAT kind of end. Well, I hoped it wouldn't.
I've been mourning and questioning and wondering what the heck happened. I've been reading quotes on friendship. And, encountered a list of "things you should let go this year" posted on some site. One bullet point was 'toxic people.'
Wait. Am I that friend's toxic person? Holy crap! That's hard to hear. I am someone else's toxic person, the person that adds no benefit to another's life, the person that brings another down. Wow. That's harsh. How does one deal with that?
