Life is strange and full of surprises. One minute you’re feeling on top of the world and the next you’re feeling down. Sometimes it makes sense and for the most part you can’t figure out what is going on.
If we sit and analyse what makes us tick we realise that we often don’t allow ourselves the time and energy to grieve a bad situation and come to terms with what it means and how it has impacted our lives. I’m sure you’ve heard it so many times that grieving for someone who died is a very important process, coming to terms with the loss of that person and the fact that you will never see them again, chat to them, laugh or cry with them. In order for closure we need to go through this mourning period.
Why is it then that we don’t allow ourselves the same sort of grieving process when we move home, change jobs, get divorced, move away from a particular community or group, lose friends who either move away or move on in life. Somehow we treat this differently, we simply expect to carry on as usual. About 14 years ago we witnessed a mass exodus of friends emigrating and I remember how hard the goodbyes were. It got to a stage where I simply could not face going to the airport to say farewell again. It broke my heart when I sat and thought about what those people meant to me and how they had impacted my life. Than a very close friend was emigrating, I remember feeling that loss the hardest. It was the hardest thing to say goodbye at the airport but I knew that I needed to do that in order to help me through this mourning period, and that if I hadn’t gone to the airport I would have regretted it. I remember in the weeks that followed how angry I felt towards her. I was angry that she chose to move away and that our friendship would now be long distance and would simply put, never be the same again. I remember her calling me on Christmas Eve that year to chat and when the conversation was over I was a wreck, I missed her so much and it was so hard talking to her knowing I wouldn’t see her anytime soon. It took a few months for me to come to terms with it. I did however have the chance to visit her in her new country and meet her friends and see the places she spoke about in her numerous emails to me. Than a few years later I found myself divorced and suddenly our friendship changed. I no longer received chatty emails from her, I received short factual emails. I realised that she was angry at me for getting divorced and I was angry at her for judging me. After this things were never the same even though we had a heart to heart and decided that our friendship was worth more than changed ideas and opinions. It was never the same for me, I knew that she did not approve of the new man in my life, so I couldn’t really talk to her about what I was up to without upsetting her. Eventually one day I made the very hard decision to block her on FB, I had my reasons and it was not because I was embarrassed about what she might see or read, I just realised that it may it hard for her to equate my “old life” with my “new life” and perhaps it would be easier if it wasn’t shoved in her face all the time. Sadly this dear friend visited here last year and because I had blocked her on FB she decided she didn’t want to see me as I had made my choice. She told me she wanted to remember me as I was. This was very upsetting for me, but I do know that through our awkward stage after my divorce I was the one who worked at staying in touch with her, of keeping the contact, so in retrospect I don’t feel guilty that I didn’t do what I could to save the friendship. I am grieving over this now and even though others may not understand why, I don’t need to explain myself, I need to mourn the loss of this very special friendship and when I have I can move on.
I was chatting to my man yesterday and he mentioned how heartsore he feels and he doesn’t know why, like he has a heavy heart. He then listed all the wonderful things he has going for him at the moment and explained that he can’t understand why he feels like this when life is good. Last year there was a huge split in a community we were involved in and it really hurt both of us but really impacted him more than he realises. I explained that although he had come to terms with the whole thing he was still in the mourning process and needed to let the process run. Being an impatient person when it comes to things like this he felt he should be over it and moving on. One simply can’t wipe away the bad things in life, you can wipe but the stain is always there to remind us and to help us make wise decisions moving forward. These things teach us how to better manage our lives and to make good choices about who we befriend, what we do, what groups or activities are important to us and what we want to be involved in.
We also need to remember that there will always be one negative person who seems to affect the things we like doing. It may not always be the same person but there is always one whiny, grumpy person upsetting the apple cart. We need to learn to stand back and evaluate how the majority feel and go with that. That one negative person will get over themselves and stay or move on. Life is too short to try and keep everyone happy, we need to focus on our own happiness first and this will spill over into everything else we do.
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