End of an era.

I lost a friendship tonight.

I knew it was coming. I actually planned on initiating the conversation myself, but I wanted to do it in person. I felt I owed this person that much. They beat me to the punch and decided that instant messaging was good enough to end a three year friendship that, at one point, was very important to me. It ended in an exchange of messages that left me so angry I was literally shaking and then that was it. The anger is gone. While I am sure that I will lose other friendships as a result of the ending of this one, I am still not angry. Just saddened that it ended this way. I overestimated my former friend’s capacity to be accepting and understanding, a mistake I will try and avoid in the future. Now I just feel sorry for them for reasons I won’t elaborate further because, honestly, I said my piece and the public doesn’t need to know the particulars. Besides I could argue my position until the day I die, but it won’t change anything.

I had really hoped that this person and I could be quite mature about the situation, and not discuss it in blogs and such. I over-estimated them. Well I don’t feel much like taking the high road anymore. I’ve done it a lot. I’ve kept my mouth shut when things were said that pissed me off, I’ve tried to hold my tongue when rants were uttered for the thousandth time and I accepted stupid little comments about my flaws as a person (all of which I am perfectly aware of and do not need reminding of) all for the sake of preserving a friendship. After all, those who wish to have long term friendships must learn to have short term memories.

When I was a teenager I used to go to church several times a week. I won’t lie and say I went because I was uber religious. I went because my friends were there and it was the one place my mom would let me go and hang out without her supervision. I did learn a lot about my faith and friendship while I was there. I picked up quite a bit very useful advice from our youth pastors that has helped me everyday since he shared it with us. One of the things he told us was that we cannot go through life expecting things to be completely fair. Sometimes you will end up with the short end of the stick and that includes in friendships and we have to remember that not every friendship is an answer to your prayer, but rather you are the answer to someone else’s or at least you are there to do something God needs you to do. He taught us to believe that there is a purpose behind every action we do, and a reason why people enter and exit our lives. While we do not understand God’s purpose, we have to accept them and believe that we learned something, even if it was a lesson we care not to repeat.

So to that person who used to be my friend, just know that I am not angry; holding on to anger hurts no one but yourself, and acceptance is the only way to be at peace with your life (a lesson I tried to impart on you. My greatest hope for you is that you will learn it before your anger and frustrations destroy you). I am a little hurt that you did not believe I deserved that same respect I had for you, however, I am over it. I will readily accept what I cannot change and that is a lesson I learned, in part, from this friendship.

(And by the way, words do have the capacity to hurt me but I choose ignore the words of people who do not have my best interests at heart. That is a lesson I learned long before you and I were friends.)