Letting Go

Sometimes, in being true to myself I find I am in conflict. Each 'truism' has merit and purpose and is valued and ethical and yet in direct conflict. I have written before about my struggle with a friend that I have separated from for many, many reasons. I had cause to be with her the other day and I certainly could have refused the opportunity but I wanted to 'see' how it felt. And although, on the surface we laughed and enjoyed our old ways of being together, - for me, right under the surface is all that has transpired between us. For me it is not a 'safe' friendship.

Right there is my conflict of how to 'honor and/or be true to myself. On the one hand I have a belief system that says to love no matter what and forgive and on the other hand I hold true to a belief that says pay attention to what can cause harm and avoid situations and people that you have experienced as such, directly and indirectly. Also, when I spoke with her and explained how I felt - she was surprised and can not acknowledge or validate how I experienced her - and thus is holding me responsible for our friendship not moving forward. I tried to explain that as she was changing and I was experiencing her in hurtful ways I fought hard for our friendship by excusing those behaviors and finding a way to love her despite them - and that at some point her hurtful behaviors became bigger than my ability to put them aside. She has NO reference for this at all. And for me it is just too unsettling to pretend that everything is fine when I can see the pink elephant and she cannot. And when I mention the pink elephant for the sake of resolve it is clear that she has no interest in acknowledging it or resolving anything - claiming there is nothing really to resolve with statements like, "that is who I am,", "I was doing my job", "you should have supported me more".........................I was in a very difficult situation and I honored her until I couldn't.

I cannot honor her now. I don't hold her in esteem or regard any more. I don't trust my truths or what is important to me, with her. I don't like the person she has become. I liked/loved who she was, who we were together, for a long time. And if you were to ask her she would say that I was the one who left the friendship, not her. That is the most disturbing and unsettling part of this for me - to know how I agonized over how much she changed and how I fought to hold on to her, to us, despite the changes in her until I couldn't make sense out of that effort any more - and to then spend an evening together as if none of that even happened? It was all too much.

How do I say what I must say,. Why is that "love no matter what" value and "protect myself" belief in such conflict. Both are right and have purpose and they are both yelling inside me to 'win'. I believe I can love her and still protect myself. I can move from the friendship lovingly, knowing that who she has become is not safe for me. I have to let go of wishing she could understand that. She never will. :-( I tried, God knows I tried.