Journal Entry #2 Not everything that is faced can...

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Journal Entry #2

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. -James Arthur Baldwin

Have you ever had a friendship completely dissolve only to find that you have no clue why? You search for answers and you come up short. No answers. No closure.

I, myself, have been on the wrong end of a disappearing friendship. For a while I was confused. The nonexistent closure in this relationship drove me crazy. I am one to jump into questions about what happened - “what is the common denominator?” “what did I do?” “what could I have done more of?” There seems to be an endless list of what’s and why’s.

It’s hard because when a friendship dissolves with zero fight - it makes you wonder what kind of foundation the friendship was built on in the first place.

I was talking with one of my friends the other day about how we we believe there are “chapter friends.” By that I mean those friends who are only in your life for a chapter. Or maybe a few chapters. But not for a series. It has taken time but I have learned to be okay with that. There were moments where I definitely was not. I thought to myself that friendship, in a way, should be like marriage- you fight for it, you confront each other when the other person is doing something hurtful, you shed grace, love, and do life together. But then I was honest with myself and realized that not everyone thinks that way about friendship and that it really is an unrealistic view of friendship. Though there are friends that understand the whole “for better or for worse/lets do life together/I will call you out on your crap and you should be ok with that/we will laugh and cry at what life throws at us” mentality those friends are rare. When you find them fight for them. Don’t give up easily.

I hate confrontation partially because I hate the idea of making the other person uncomfortable. Ick. It is something I have a hard time with. However, when someone hurts my feelings I do say nicely, “dude, that kinda hurt my feelings.” I do that solely because I would want someone to do that with me. It’s part of being real with each other. Relationships don’t grow if you don’t go through crud together. It’s those moments - the yucky ones- that make friendships stronger. And I, for one, think those are the friendships worth having.

So the phrase in this picture is so appropriate. “What we are is not what we once were” and I have now learned to be ok with that. I am thankful for the people that have been in my life because I have learned a lot from them. I now know that my view point that “things will always be the same” is unrealistic. :)