"Friends"

friend noun - a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection


"Friend" is probably one of the most overused words in my vocabulary at the moment. I know lots of people. I talk to lots of people. But with today's use of social media, I think I know people, I mean I follow them and interact with them behind a screen... but when it comes to it, I actually only socialize with maybe two or three of them face-to-face. We all have our own lives now, and that makes it really hard to go out a lot of times, even just planning on grabbing a cup of coffee together usually takes about three days to figure out. Schedules are absolutely awful. But here's what I've noticed and it's probably something that most people will over look the first time they read the definition of "friend".
Go ahead and read it again. Did you pick up on it?
I'm talking about the word "mutual".
When I interact with someone face to face we are investing time in each other. We are taking the time out of our day to spend it together. We are saying, "You are important to me."
Think about it, time is the one way to give something you cannot get back. You cannot get time back once you have spent it.
So to me, investing time into my friendships is very important. It's actually one of my love languages. Also coffee. Coffee is another of my love languages. {Thank you, Kara for boarding the coffee train! And thank you Katie for already being on the coffee train. Much love, my fellow caffeine addicts!}

Here's the thing: if I had to get down to the bare bones of it, the nitty gritty, the "who-do-I-actually-spend-time-with" people, I don't have that many friends. It's not for lack of people. I have over 13,000 views on this blog, 297 followers on Instagram, 4 brothers and sisters, 5 brothers and sisters in-laws, I have a lottttttt of people in my life. But I don't have that many that I actually sit down with and share the gruesome facts about my every day life with.

Once upon a time, I could swear I had about 15 BEST friends. Not just acquaintances, but BEST FRIENDS. I had about 15 confidants, people I would text and tell everything about my life and situations to. I loved that each person brought a new perspective to the table. But as time went on that number has dwindled down to the whopping number of 2 {this number of course excludes my family!}. The reason for that falling number has a lot to do with schedules never working out, and a lot to do with me realizing that only a handful of those "best" friends actually cared about me. Really, truly, honestly cared.

A good friend of mine shared this quote a while back. At first I was slightly offended...I haven't been the best of friends to her...But then I realized you really don't get to say how you have hurt people. S. was truly grieving over my actions, which to me had seemed unimportant at the time. It was only after a long talk and a lot of prayer that I realized even if I hadn't meant to I had still hurt her and that required an apology from me. It grew our friendship, by a lot.

I took this quote and applied it to my own life. I admit that I have not been the emotionally strongest person in my life, up until now I have allowed others to dictate whether or not my feelings were valid. Up until this point people could tell me I was "over-reacting" to something and I would become ashamed for feeling something so deeply since it was apparently so "trivial" {my biography shall be titled, The Woes of Being an INFJ}. Now. It's all about standing up for myself. People cannot tell you that what you are feeling doesn't count, or you're being dramatic {unless of course you calm down and realize you've REALLY blown things out of proportion; thank you Katie for always being the "Drama Cop" of my life!}.

So this all led me to realize that I am worth something and there were some people that treated me as second best, or last resort. You may have a few of those people in your life too. They are the ones who ignore your texts day in and day out, but yet find the time to post on all their social media accounts or hang out with their other girlfriends....those are the friends at you need to seriously take another look at. Because those people, whether intentionally or unintentionally are not your friends. You deserve better than that. You have the right and the power to put your foot down and say "no more."

Now I'm not encouraging you to have a 50 year feud with those people. But if they even bother to notice that you stopped talking or reaching out to them than just explain as nicely and factually as possible that you don't hate them, you are just tired of being at different levels of friendship. After all why should you have her as one of your top five best/close/intimate friends when you don't even score in the top 25 on her list?

I don't know how to end this post honestly. I'm not a relationship expert, but I do know that the minute you get out of an unhealthy friendship you feel lots better. And it's ok if that person doesn't understand, maybe they will be like me and take a couple of days to realize that your feelings are valid. Or maybe they won't. Regardless, you are a strong individual. You deserve the best. It's rough to cut people. And maybe you won't cut people, but with my personality type once I've realized that a person isn't helping me grow, and instead just making me second guess my own self-worth...That is when that person needs go go.

So put your hair in a bun, drink some coffee, or wine, or both, pray lots for those people, and then don't look back. Simple, yet hard. But oh so worth it.