Catching Up

Here are a few posts that I have written over the past few months. Looking back, most of them don't accurately represent how I feel at this time, but I think that is something great about blogging, seeing progress/improvement/perspective changes as time passes and circumstances change :)

Sometimes (most of the time) i hvae so many thoughts running rampant in my head, i get so frustrated and anxious and cant separate any thought long enough to propose a solution to myself about any single issue. then the issue becomes 10 issues, and im so frustrated i can hardly function but to do anything that gets my mind of of my runaway thoughts. this weekend has been one of those times. There are several things giong on, not necessarily issues or problems.
i have been having a struggle with friendships lately. I have learned the hard way over the years that some people are only out to manipulate and make miserable the people in their lives, either to get something they don't have or to simply feel in control over someone else. i am guilty of putting up with this kind of friend for a long time, and it has been a painful process to let go of the things that
people have done to hurt me. I am not innocent in this regard either, there are several occasions that
-- i wish i could rewind and be a better friend, whether it was something hurtful that was said in a careless conversation, listening to a rumor from an untrustworthy source and believing it, and it has end up costing me a lot in terms of trust and loyalty to these people, and somethimes relationships
cannot mend from this type of carelss comment or hurtful actions. I have tried to rectify the situation and currently i am trying to be more aware both of myself in general and the impressions i give off to others, and they way i treat my friends and the way i am treated in return. i was recently disappointed by the behavior of a few "friends" and their actions in multiple situations, and it has made me think about how many "real" friends i have. i think everyone has to define friendships in their own way based on the type of relationship they care to have with their friends. they may not want friends who will tell them the truth, but who will play along with their delusions and tell them what they want to hear. they may not care if a friend will be there for them when they hit rock bottom, just as long as this friend is there to buy drinks and get invited to all the good places. loyalty, willingness to help, and being non judgemental are important things for me to have in a friend. loyalty meaning you arent going to turn on me as ss don as you get a better offer from someone else, that you wont talk about me behind my back, or fail to defend me when someone else says something about me. willingness to help means you wont disappear when i need help moving ,or need a ride to the airport, and you will participate when im doing something and need assistance. willingness to help also means not saying one thing and doing another, making me wait and wonder if you are actually going to show up because you are running on yur own time fram and set of circstances. I understand that thingschaednge and plans need to be adjusted sometimes, but not every time we make plans. being non judgemental means you will try to understand where i am coming from, instead of appying my problems to your own life (which is a natural tendancy i understand), and try to help me find a productive solution to the problem without writing it off as stupid or childish or saying i just need to get over it. I can handle your honest opinion, but only if it comes from a place of caring and understanding, not judgement. i realize that those qualities are not realistic to expect of every friend i have, but i am having a hard time listing people who have all those characteristics. I feel like that reflects badly on my ability to pick true friends, and why i am holding on to relationships that dont offer me what i need. and when you do realize that you arent getting the things you need out of a relationship, how do you go about fixing it? people do not change easily, that is a lesson i have learned but am trying hard to rebel against in my own life, by changing minor things about my personality that i am realizing i dont like. but the desire to change has to come from within and it cant be forced. it feels pretty lonley when you struggle to identify people who you can truly trust and count on, and you are left with mostly  close family members.

it feels good to know that you are that friend for somebody, and it can be worth keeping a relationship because you know that person depends on
  your good qualities as a friend to them, but there are a lot of relationships where there is no benefit to either party, which is difficult to admit, and difficult to move forward with once you realize this. its frustrating to me that i hve a pretty big circle of friends (work, soccer, high school, college) but there are very few that possess the qualities that i look for in a friend, and try to be as a friend. that circle is greatly diminished when you set friendship standards like you would relationship standards. i struglle with setting relationship standards and stickign to them because the ones that arent like the ones you thought you wanted are usually the fun ones with lots of chemistry. that is a separate post, my frustration about my decisions when it comes to relationships, and the complext i have given myself when it comes to how i feel.

for now i am relieved to unleash some of these friendship thoughts into the world, for feedback or simply for my own reflection should nobody else ever see these words. but now i am tormented by the next steps. first i want to identify the relationships that are beneficial to me and that i feel i offer a benefit to that person. then it is the process of determing which relationships that dont give me what i want are worth putting forth effort for?

it feels selfish and judgemental to be categorizing friends in this way, but also freeing. after attending 2 funerals in the past month, under very different circumstances, i have been thinking about what will matter in the end. to me, as the peron "dying" (not really, knocking on wood now, what is going to matter to me is how i lived my life. did i travel, have adventures, experience disappointment and tragedy and heartbreak and continue to live, did i open myself up to other peeople and let them enrich my life? did i enrich theirs and make an impact? did i do waht i wanted to do instead of waht i thought i shoiuld do? did i define myself in my own terms instead of societys terms? did i tell the people i love that i love them and how much they meant to me?

if i can close my eyes for the last time in this life with yes as the answer to all or most of those questions, nothing else will matter to me. the drama, the frustration ,the anxiety wont matter, because it will have been a life well lived and well loved, and the only person whos questions i will need to respond to in that last moment before going to the place where the only person who REALLY matters is there to welcome me into the kingdom of heaven, are my own and hopefully i am satisfied with my own answers.

wow, that is pretty heavy for a sunday afternoon.