As I drove back to the beach house from theirs I thought about how lucky I was to have such good friends not only these particular friends, but the many many friends I have that span decades and with whom I'm still connected. I may have even fractured my arm that night patting myself on the back while telling SK, with just a tad bit of arrogant pride, that Chris and I are still in touch with everyone who was in our wedding party--a feat not everyone can claim.
Yesterday I started reading Horses Speak of God again. (You may be happy to know I have now finished it..well finished reading it--I'm not sure I'll ever finish processing it). Anyway in her chapter Dislodged I read these words, "Over this same course of months, what began as a friendship began to feel oppressive." (p.110) and "I'd ignored the signs in my own soul of discomfort and annoyance, of something being wrong in this relationship." (p.111). After wanting to throw the book deep into the ocean, I admitted to myself--I'm really good at collecting friends; I'm just not so good at letting them go even when when it causes me deep pain.
Oh I'm good at talking about it. I've had many conversations with people talking about how sometimes we have friends for a season and then that season comes to an end--no big drama it's just over. I can say it, but I'm also the neurotic, send multiple texts and letters asking what went wrong; how I messed up--if you're one of those people who I "stalked" I apologize right now. I'm also not good at listening to that feeling in my gut (maybe because I trust nothing about my gut due to my past eating disorder--but that's another story) that tells me a relationship is unhealthy. I miss or ignore the signs and like a dog that has run through an electric fence one too many times (yes we had one of those) I don't learn very well. Chris reminds me every time we move if someone who has lived in the new place has lived there for a very long time and instantly wants to become my best friend and do everything with me, it's not because of my effervescent personality but rather because said person has worn everyone else out!
Why am I like this? I think the truth is I am totally uncomfortable with conflict and I have an insatiable need to be liked by everyone (even though I don't like everyone--figure that out). Somewhere along the way of my journey through life I began to believe that conflict is bad and necessarily means failure--necessarily means brokenness. I suspect I'm not the only one in the world who struggles has learned this fake lesson.
But I do detest conflict particularly direct conflict in relationships. I often wonder why relationships can't just be fun and easy and always life giving--then I remember we're human. I suppose I could dissect this gazing through the lens of my past, but that lens is cloudy. Fact is I abhor conflict between people even people I don't know. It makes me uncomfortable; it sends me into my fix it mode. For instance, Sunday night SK and I witnessed a couple having a very heated argument and I could barely stand it; I was antsy, agitated, and way more uncomfortable than the couple in question. (SK did find it amusing and even documented it...) It happened again Tuesday morning on the beach...
When it directly involves me, I want to suppress it, to deny it, to pretend it isn't happening, and to twist myself into whatever pretzel that person wants me to be to avoid. Problem is it doesn't work.
It's not that I don't believe some relationships need to come to an end and not just because the season is over and they come to a drama free end; I do believe sometimes the life preserver of a relationship must be removed, but it's still sad and people still get hurt. I am, after all, the daughter of divorced parents. The truth is I prayed for them to divorce for a number of years, but when it happened it knocked me on my hiney--both literally and figuratively (I spent some time in the garage on my backside screaming my lungs out). But from that pain for our family came resurrection--new relationships, new life.
Relationships grow and change. People within relationships grow and change. Sometimes what we "need" from a relationship changes. Sometimes we have less time, less energy to nurture relationships and we have to trust the relationship is strong enough to withstand or that we are strong enough to lovingly let the relationship go. Sometimes, and this is where it gets hard, one person in the relationship changes and then Newton's third law becomes a possibly unwanted part of the relationship--you know the one that says every action has an equal and opposite reaction--which in relationships can cause that dreaded word conflict.
Bottom line is conflict doesn't have to mean the end of a relationship though sometimes it does. Conflict can, in fact, bring two people even closer which I can personally attest to--you know who you are. Healthy conflict takes practice and the willingness to move through it--the willingness Brock calls being dislodged or bucked. "We humans, I realize, buck naturally. Our primal souls don't always have the patience or ability to share in soft, comfortable ways the exuberance of life or the anger of life," (p. 111)
Brock ends the chapter writing, "Horses buck. Humans buck. God bucks. To be in relationship with any and all of these means we must always be ready to be dislodged and always be willing to ask ourselves, in the aftermath of being dislodged, Now what?" (p.112)
Now I am going to give thanks for all the friendships God has gifted me with--the ones that continue and the ones that have ended. For each of these relationships has helped to shape who I am and who I will continue to grow into being. And I look forward to the many new relationships I have yet to form.
No comments:
Post a Comment