What happened, you may ask? It’s simple and yet incredibly complicated. I was myself. And it’s that same self which causes me to feel this way a year and half later.
I am at my core insecure and socially awkward. I panic and worry about saying wrong thing. And despite many from outside saying I did nothing wrong, I still feel at fault.
Over 7 months pregnant and I mishandled a delicate and emotional incident. People I thought were my friends assumed the worst of me, things I never on my worst day would have thought of them. Horrible words were hurled at me by one of them. I was told I was not a victim so don’t I dare act like it.
True friends don’t do that. People that honestly care about you give you the benefit of the doubt. They think “that’s not like her, so it probably wasn’t meant that way.” And then they check, they ask, they don’t accuse. But no. I was a thoughtless, horrible person who should feel horrible — but we can totally still be friends as long as I had learned my lesson. And I actually agreed. At first.
Then I stepped back. I looked back over the previous months and even years and realized these people, these so called good friends had practically only ever contacted me if they needed something from me. Neither one checked in to just to say hi or see how I was doing, though I did that for them (and if I didn’t do that for them regularly, I was a bad friend).
After days of council from people who really did care about me I came to realize I couldn’t continue with that negativity in my life. I was pregnant, about to be a mother and the stress was not good for me. So I stopped. I stopped checking in with one, and with the other I backed off and gave them the space they requested. And when I did that, the friendships ended. I felt an incredible weight lift off of me I and no idea I was carrying.
And yet, just over a year and half later, at my weakest points, I still blame myself. I see bits of happiness I would be involved in if we were still friends and I wonder if there was something I could have or should have done to fix things.
I guess that’s just the way I am.
(artwork by Marie Esther, http://marie-esther.deviantart.com)
