I started my new year like any other and cleaned up my friend list, removing those that I had met once or twice and never spoke to after the initial meeting, deleting old high school acquaintances that I had nothing in common with except for a shared class, and letting go of a relationship that hasn't been on the same path as mine for quite some time.
Normally I don't feel anything when I clean up my "friend" list. Those I am removing didn't have any impact on my life as it stands today. They didn't offer anything meaningful to conversation and I was pretty sure they would never notice that I had quietly omitted them from my profile. My facebook page is mostly public. I don't believe that anything online is actually private and if one does want to be private, social media sites are not really the place to hang out. So, although I have removed these people from my feed and I won't actively show up in theirs, if they have a hankering to check out my life, it's online for others to find.
Once upon a time, I was the girl who danced on speakers, drank copious amounts of shots, while hanging out with people in dark clubs with loud music. One of those people was a girl that became my speaker dancing partner in crime and the times we had at the bar were a blast.We would often meet to shop, or have drinks at a restaurant, or hang out at her place around the fire, drinking the nights away. The one thing we had in common was drinking and dancing. We called each other best friends and enjoyed dressing up and going out for the night. She would listen to the drama I was facing and I would listen to hers, then we would toast the night away.
But, as some wise woman may have said at some point, there does come a time that you let the drama go. I began to focus more on creating the version of me that I am going to be most proud of when I am a rickety old lady, sipping gin and tonics out of tea cups. I started to volunteer more and used my ability to rally the support of my friends to help others in need instead of ourselves all of the time (disclaimer -- helping others in need actually does help yourself, try it for a month and you'll see). I spent less time in dark clubs and more in the light. I created a group of friends that shared this value with me to give back to the world and to make it a better place. We would help each others causes. The support from this group is amazing. Everyday I am more and more encouraged and inspired by this group of people. I let the he-said/she-said BS go. And my life began to seemingly have a purpose and was full of meaning.
The girl that I believed was my best friend was not as enthusiastic as I was about this change and about being the change. She was recently married and just had another son, our lives were on different paths. She wrote a letter to me, filled with accusations about my lack of thoughtfulness, my irritating eagerness, my inability to be a friend, peppered with all of the mistakes I had made according to her. Which hurt my feelings, but worse, marred our relationship. You know when you have this amazing support group that cheers you on in the direction your life is going and then one person you wanted most to be at the finish line tells you this direction is annoying? It's really hard to call that person to talk about anything anymore. You feel like you have to hide who you are and what you are passionate about and this loss of authenticity makes it so you avoid that person. Which creates more and more of a void in the relationship. Until finally, no matter how many times you want to reach out to that person and tell her that you miss her, hoping things can change, when you do, you just feel saddened, and guilty, even though you really haven't done anything wrong in making the decision to live your life in a more positive way.
This is a story about the tough choice I made to remove this person from my life. And though I believe that our paths could cross again in the future, I don't believe we will ever have that relationship where I don't feel judged by her again. And without that absence of judgement, there isn't a friendship. A part of me wishes it could be different, that she could be on this path with me now, celebrating all of this awesome that I have had happen in the last year or so since we have spoken, although I would never give up what I have now for it. And although not being on my facebook friends list really doesn't mean anything in the entire scheme of things, it does have a symbolic impact. And cutting that string was way harder than I thought it would be.
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”
Anaïs Nin
