There was a time, not so very long ago, that I would fight to the teeth to maintain any and all relationships. Letting go of anything has never been easy for me. The amount of loss I have endured from a young age makes me value relationships, which isn’t a bad thing. What doesn’t work well is when its isn’t reciprocated and I cling to the past at the cost of my future.
My first boyfriend was not a nice person. He gave that impression to everyone, but intimate relationships were not his game and I suffered emotional and sexual violence from him. When he ended things with me, I just couldn’t let go. My sick mind spiraled and I found myself calling, showing up at his home, and begging for answers and another chance. I so desperately didn’t want to be alone that I couldn’t walk away. This was at a time when I still didn’t really recognize my illness and had not gotten help. Eventually I was able to get my head clear and realize that I was better out of that relationship than in it.
My friends mean a lot to me and their love and support has saved me on so many occasions. When you invest time and energy in to any relationship of course it’s hard when things change and people back away. But there is a huge difference between natural endings or moving on and those who make a choice to disappear with no rhyme or reason. The latter is what is most painful. There are two friends whom I considered as family that have done this to me, each during painful periods of my life when I needed them the most. They just disappeared. The reasons were various but in both cases I tried so hard to reconnect, ask what was wrong, beg for them to talk to me. I just couldn’t fathom not having them in my life. I had done nothing that I was aware of to cause such an action and was wracking my brain constantly to try and figure out what part I had played in their decision.
I’ve talked to these friends on and off during COVID but nothing is the same. I don’t have that level of trust in them I used to. And what saddens me most is they don’t seem to want to re-establish our strong connection. I know time will tell what happens but in this process I have become stronger. I will chase no more. If you open the door and someone chooses not to walk through it then that’s on them. You have no control over that and to keep chasing something that may no longer be there isn’t fair to you. My life is not a drop-in centre where folks can come and go as they please. I give a lot of time and support to those in my world and if you choose to remove yourself from it then I need to refocus that energy to the people who remain loyal and keep standing by me. That last part is what has caused me to change. I realized I was giving my time and attention more to chasing what was then to what is. Those who have stayed in my life deserve my full attention. They have never wavered in their love and support.
Had I still been in the sick mind I was in all those years ago, I might have continued to chase these relationships. I know that deep down it will always bother me to loose them, but I cannot stay healthy if I focus on things that are no longer there. Maybe circumstances will change and those connections can be good again. Only time will tell. But the chase of one-sided relationships is something I am moving past now. I owe it to myself and to the people who continue to stand by me.