When Friendships End

They say we learn to socialise as children, that all that rough and tumble, the 'dobbing' on each other, the push and shove, the winning and losing, the raw honesty "I'm not your friend anymore", "I hate you!" puts us in good stead for adult relationships, so we know how to have friendships when we 'grow up'.

There are two points there, we really need to know when the 'growing up' part happens and who is ever ready for adult friendships?

I watch the shows on TV (soap operas, sitcoms etc) and I see all this honesty, the perfectly scripted dialogue the resolutions and the tender parting of ways and I wonder …. WHAT THE FUCK!

That's not how it is, that is never how I have experienced it.

I think my life is back to front or upside down or buggered if I know …

The people I fought and played with when I was little, are still my friends. The person I came together with over a common cause, like standing up to a bully, she is still my friend, the person I shared some real moments with like when I got engaged and her marriage ended, (so did mine eventually), we are still in touch, the friend I met through our boyfriends and we decided we enjoyed each others company better than the boyfriends, she is still my dear friend, the friend I made by sheer coincidence and we now don't see enough of each other. These are all my friends.

So what *is* it that ends friendships.

For me, I believe it has been bad communication, because I have friendships that have ended, and I still don't understand why, or maybe even the other way around, maybe they were left reeling, but I was hurt, and that is often hard to say to a person's face.

Or we just change, our interests change, our life directions change and we start to have less in common, less to keep us together.

Everyone's experience is different, because, as I mentioned before, we are groomed for this as children.

Just writing this post though, I've noticed a common thread that weaves it's way through the friendships I still have … They have substance.

My friends are real, true and honest.

So, how do you end friendships? Do you even make that choice or do they just slip away? Or do you try hard, when you see them changing, to hold on?

What is your soap opera of life as far as friendships go? I truly am interested to know!

Coming Home

I sometimes wonder how I have got through life at the hands of such a dysfunctional family.

It was only recently that I admitted to a Psychologist that I believed I did not know how to "feel", ANYTHING!

Not just love, nor hate, frustration, sadness, joy ... no not just one or two emotions or feelings ... ALL OF THEM! Some I do not know the names of because we have never been introduced.

However, after this weekend just gone, I may have to rethink that.

While I did grow up in a family that was less than supporting, caring or nurturing, I was lucky enough to have grown up in a time where the idea of a Community raising a child still existed.

I have a pseudo family, one I have known since I met my sister when we were 4 years old.  We were at Preschool, and we became friends.  It turned out we lived in the same street, so as we grew up, spending time with each other was not hard to do.

I became a part of her family, just because I never went home! I loved her Parents and her sister and even her Aunties; her cats and dogs, her parrot that "wolf whistled" every time we walked in the back yard, we played with guinea pigs and so many other family pets over the years.  We played as a community in the street with all the other kids that never went home; and we shared our childhood.

We climbed on garage roofs to eat mulberries straight off the tree, we caught tadpoles at the local creek (along with a few leaches) and watched them grow into frogs, we drew tennis courts on the road of our dead end street and held Wimbledon style competitions for all to compete in.

We recorded our own radio shows (on cassette recorders) and had imaginary friends who kept us occupied for many hours at a time. We took pet mice to school in our pencil cases, or our imaginary friends. We had gymnastics competitions in the back yard and swam in the pool in summer.

I got in trouble from her Mum and Dad when we did not do what was required of us, or if we pushed the boundaries from time to time. But I also felt part of the family as a result of that discipline, like someone cared enough to set me straight.

We went to Church (as everyone in our community did) even if you were not Religious, just because that was where all the community activities were held. We went to Girls Brigade, Physical Culture, Dancing, Sunday School, Youth Group. We played tennis at the local courts and bought ice cream on the way home at "George's Corner Shop", where we all learnt to play a pinball machine, not to mention Pacman and Space Invaders when they first became "the thing"!

And when I reminisce like this, I wonder how I could possible have been so sad as a child ... but I do know ... it was when I had to go home.

I had to relive that feeling this weekend, my best friend remarried and I was lucky enough to be there to help her celebrate, to revel in her joy and be a part once more of her family.  It was wonderful too to be able to spend so much time with our sister, and nieces and nephews and prospective son and daughter in laws, to be proud of all their achievements and to enjoy the adults they have become.
I felt like I had come home ... and then, once again, I had to go home ...

But I now understand, that I do feel, that I do love, that I am loved and that is because I was with people I can trust to respect my feelings,  to nurture them and to share them with me to allow myself to be vulnerable and know, I will not be hurt.

Thank you my sisters and my family.  I now know who you are.
I have come home xo

Another Happy Ending