For months I’ve been struggling with the deterioration of a long-term friendship. A friendship that I never expected to diminish in any way…let only to the extent and agility it has.
This was one of my longest friendships…of my entire life. So you can imagine how deeply the pain runs. I’ve wrote a bit about it before…my attempt to let go because hanging on does little but keep me picking a scab that won’t heal.
I’ve tried cutting cords…numerous times. I’ve tried hiding her on Facebook. I’ve tried telling myself the friendship clearly wasn’t that important if it can be discarded so easily. I’ve tried getting mad…ignoring it…pretending it never existed. Yesterday, I finally tried crying…thanks to the help of my Shamans.
I hadn’t even begun to realize the depth of the pain until the tears started. Until the words left my lips. The Shamans creating a safe place where I could feel my pain…speak my pain…be witnessed without judgement.
There were years of loyalty…trust…my heart…that felt blown to smithereens. I think that’s partly why Hatchi affected me so deeply. It struck a nerve in my core. The special place inhabited only by love. She had become my sister…a part of my family…and now even that felt destroyed.
I felt alone…cut off from my coven. Left standing on the outside looking in because I’m assumed stronger…able to care for myself and fend off attacks. I don’t need the coven like she does….but I do.
Regardless of my exterior…the look on my face…or the protective words that come out my mouth…I have a heart that beats just like anyone else’s. A heart that is as fragile and breaks like anyone else’s. I have feelings that make me sensitive when a friendship is lost…those are the same feelings that allow me to care so deeply for my friends.
This pain isn’t just isolated to her. It’s part of a cycle of pain I’ve been dealing with since childhood. A constant fear that my friends…my family…would reject me and I’d find myself alone. She triggered that old wound.
At 42, I know how ridiculous it might sound to be hurt by a friendship ending…well, technically it didn’t even end…it just faded out like an old star. I know that people change and as a result, relationships change. I know that she’s one person in the world of millions and I have many other beautiful and supportive friends still standing by. But she was my person for so long….the other half of a friendship I thought would always be strong.
The Shamans said my job is to allow myself to shift out of what the friendship was and into a new definition of it. Logically I know this is possible. I have lots of women in my life that are friends and acquaintances. Women I care about simply because they are human, like me. And because we share that most basic truth, I want them to be supported and feel loved.
That is my work over the course of the next few days…weeks…months. However long it takes. I need to allow the wound in my heart to heal and see her as I would any other woman. To allow myself to let go of the pain attached to what was and step into the freedom of what is.