Money and things come and go, but the most valuable things in my life have always been experiences and lessons and they really only cost time and energy.
Some of the best friends I've ever had, chose to distance themselves from me. They called me out about something I was doing and they never made an ultimatum, but they spoke their opinion and gave me everything I could have received to make an informed decision with the perspective of someone who felt they knew me, cared for me, and wanted what was best for me.
Long story short, I lost friends for multiple and various reasons, but I think fondly of them and do not take their absence from my life lightly. Not in a regretful or self deprecating way, but in a way that has helped me with an essential element of my life to live the best life I can; Accountability.
It takes many forms, but essentially I feel like it comes down to recognizing one's own part in how something happened. But the reason I started this piece about the friends I had lost, was because few greater lessons are learned from our mistakes when the cost is a genuine friend who cared for you.
I hold myself accountable for being an abuser in my marriage, and the less than stellar grades I've received in my academic endeavors. My almost "less than honorable" forced discharge from the military, and other various aspects of my life circumstances I take accountability for. As stated before, accountability takes so many forms and can be applied to so many elements of one's life.
But as I enter the next stage of my life and navigate the reforming of my previous conceptions of what a "romantic" relationship can be, I find myself focusing more on the friendships that I have as well as the genuine friends I've lost. (It's relevant to say that not everyone I've once called a "friend" is included in this category of "genuine friend".)
I have been conceptualizing the idea of "friendship styles" and how people can be super cool and awesome and genuinely great people, but may not be compatible friends, but I'm still developing that idea and I'll probably post that piece somewhere else on this blog after further study. BUT! To the genuine friends I've lost, all of them, in one way or another, have "called me out" in various ways about various things and I learned to love being called out. It may have a negative connotation, but I don't interpret it as a negative act when in the context of genuine friends. I'm not perfect, no one is, and I've made mistakes, I am currently making mistakes, and I will continue to make mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable. People's feelings will get hurt and you very well could hurt the people you genuinely care about. But it's what people do after these mistakes that genuinely show an individual's character and who they care for most.
I'm also a firm believer in people caring for themselves and understanding their own needs, wants, habits, and reasons for doing what they do. And again... we are all going to make mistakes, but where accountability comes in is when we evaluate our own choices and behaviours and how those in our life that may be affected by our behaviours and choices. Some might even equate it to empathy. Evaluation from an empathetic standpoint is a skill that takes time and experience to learn, to balance, and to utilize. We are all going to learn and interpret empathy in our own ways and at our own paces, but I digress... Accountability, at least for me, has come from being called out. Especially from genuine good friends who I've hurt and tell me, from a place of caring and wanting better, not just for them, but for myself.
Taking accountability also may not have saved my friendships, but I feel that's not what accountability is for. It's not just "the thing you do" after you make a mistake so that you can make it right or move on. No one is entitled to forgiveness or friendship. But Accountability has been a lesson I've learned the value of over a long period of time and it has ultimately always made my life better once I've felt I've taken it.
I've hurt genuine friends who I've apologized to and who are still in my life and I am eternally grateful for their forgiveness and friendship, but I am also eternally grateful for the genuine friends that, for whatever their reasons were, did not continue to be in my life. As I've come to realize how genuine friendships have been the most fulfilling and most cherished relationships I've ever had in my life, recognizing the tremendous loss of genuine friends has become something I've had to recognize as such. A tremendous loss. But the losses I've had and have recognized my accountability in, as tragic as they are, I have chosen to ensure who I lost and the pain I caused, was not for nothing.
That's what accountability has been for me. Recognizing what I did wrong, understanding why it was wrong, and changing for the better. Accountability has become essential to my life and it is so translatable from so many circumstances to other aspects of our lives. And maybe I could have reached these conclusions on my own without being called out by a genuine friend, but... that's another important element that has really gotten me to gain this essential attribute of accountability. Whether my friends called me out in hopes I would change, or apologize, or simply because the wanted to share their feelings about how I hurt them, or what I did before they left my life, it shows bravery, self respect, and genuine care for me and their belief that I was a better person than my actions portrayed.
Goodness I miss those friends often and I commend them for recognizing something about themselves and what they deserved and how me not being in their life was what they felt was best. I hope the best for them. I will cherish my genuine friendships as best as I can, and I appreciate all of the friends who I've hurt, am hurting, and will hurt, and have called me out, and kept me in their lives. And I’ll do my best to call out my genuine friends from a place of caring when the situations present themselves because calling people out is offering the gift of accountability, whether someone takes it or not.
Accountability. However a person finds it most impactfully in their life, it really is essential to living the best life one can. Not a perfect one, not one where they do no harm and make no mistakes and lose no friends, but... ensuring that it's the best life it can be for ourselves and for our genuine friends.
T.C. ~E
I spent most of my life as a self-described "child of neglect". My folks tried and they are really doing their best to make up for it now, but no one, but yourself gets to say how you felt, and as a child, I felt alone. I didn't feel I could talk to my parents about life and that's neither a bad thing or a good thing, it's just how I felt. (Seriously... I've processed it, I'm good, I'm not sharing to ask for sympathy or even saying it's a fact, it's just how I felt and I'm just sharing my story.) Because I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone in my household, I talked to myself. We all do in some capacity, but I really, REALLY, leaned into the "talk to myself" concept.
(I'll skip through all of those early conversations I had with myself because it'll be in the "Have I told you this story yet?" section of my blog. But one helpful fact for this next part is that I referred, and still refer, to myself as "we" and not "I". Again... I'll explain it in the "Have I told you this story yet?" section.)
However, I feel like having conversations with yourself is a solid way to work towards "self love". And when I say "have conversations with yourself", I genuinely mean, talk to yourself as if you're talking to a friend. "How are you doing?", "What's on your mind?", "Are you okay?". I find that having these conversations out loud or writing them down, just getting them to become more than just "thoughts" really helps me actually think about what I'm asking, how I'm feeling, what I'm doing. When I was learning the difference between right and wrong, I would quite literally ask myself, out loud, before I made decisions, "What are we (am I) going to do?". And after decisions where made and I had time to reflect and process my feelings after the fact, I would talk to myself again, "So why did we make that choice and how are we feeling about it?".
I wanna pause real quick here and say that some may see this as "being your own therapist" or simply "being crazy", but I'm not here to suggest of imply any one way to go about mental health or life advice. Again... I'm just sharing my story.
But the more I talked to myself as a child, the more I learned to be able to self-reflect and think critically as well as sympathetically of myself. Like most people, I "beat myself up" and got down on myself. I still do and I figure that's just being human, but what I learned to do was "self soothe". When I was crying, I could tell myself, "It's okay. Let it out. You're gunna be okay." I've heard that from so many people in my life. Some I believed and some I didn't, but truly the most influential voice that determined what I believed and how I felt, was my own. I feel like that's most of us. The whole world could tell us we're "great" or "dumb" or whatever... but the last opinion that determines what we believe or not, is our own opinion.
And whether I was telling myself a truth or a lie, what I learned to do through all of this is to "trust" myself, "understand" myself, and "communicate" with myself.
And I didn't realize it until much later, but trust, understanding, and communication are the foundations of "love". At least for me. I share those things with my closest of friends, my boyfriend (and whatever other labels we choose to become. c; No pressure Hun.) But most importantly... myself.
I once had a friend ask me "How do you love yourself when there are things about yourself you don't like?". And I thought and responded with something pretty similar to this... "There will always be things about yourself you won't like, but loving is not liking, loving is understanding exactly why you are the way you are. Because no one will ever understand or know your story better than yourself."
I think that's where this story ends for now. I realized very early on that I didn't want to feel alone. So I learned to keep myself company. Because everyone else can leave you, but yourself will always be with you as long as you choose to have yourself. And you will always be loved as long as you always choose to love yourself. I realized I was stuck with myself, so I could either have a good relationship with myself or a bad realtionship with myself.
Self Love not something I found, it's something I chose. Something I choose. And I have to make that choice every day. Whether I'm happy with myself of not. But I take a deep breath, take all the time I need, and then I choose to trust, choose to understand, and choose to communicate. I choose self love. And I always will.
I love ya, kid.
I love ya too.
Take care. ~Enjoy