Reassessing Part II

I think I may have written about this before, but recently, I have been reassessing my friendships. It was easy at first. There were obviously some people who were "wrong" for me to continue to give myself to as a friend. In my friendships, I give and I try, and I had been going through some hard times from - to be honest - January through early April - and during that time, I blamed myself for not having kept in contact with some people. But with good friends, they understand that; it was simple to say: "I'm going through a tough time, and I am not able to go out right now." However, from only a very few of my EXTREMELY close friends did I ask for help during that time, and I received it. God, I hope that those very few friends never encounter such hard times as I did, but if they ever do, I would do anything in the world to support them and help them and give whatever I can to them. No questions asked, period.

Now, however, it has become more complex. There's a fine line between the good friends who knew I was going through hard times but whom I did not ask for help, and now, when I am back to "me," I am thinking about those friends who have maybe always been "takers." For example: "I'm doing this tonight, LM, would like you to come along and watch me play at x show." The worst of them all came today. "Where have you been, are you still alive?" WHAT? YOU KNEW I WAS GOING THROUGH SHIT, WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME THEN??? The "still alive" message got to me, because she knew - via my attempted outreach to her - that I was definitely not feeling alive. Seriously, if you were that concerned, then don't say it sarcastically in a message like it's MY FAULT (because I did reach out to this friend and tried to talk to her, and I got no responses until, this weekend, she wanted to find out what was going on with a mutual friend of ours - well, perhaps a former mutual friend.) In the past, my natural inclination would be to just to automatically forgive and forget and to say, oh, sure, I'll join you. In YOUR life.

But I can't do that anymore. I will address this, but not now. I am angry. And it takes me a hell of a lot to admit that. So instead, I will say that I am upset. I was there for her, and them (here I am thinking of about three specific people) in their times of struggle, and I hate it that they are now people I'm thinking about as not such great friends. I can, and will, without a doubt give and give and give, but when people I've considered good friends will disappear if I can't partake in THEIR lives - my new perspective is - what about my life? Has it always been that way? That question is the most key thing I've said here, because if it HAS always been that way, then people expect those patterns to continue, so I guess I cannot blame them, but that's not what I need in a friend. I would rather have the very few great friends in my life whom I would put myself on the subway tracks for than have "good" friends who move in and move out of my life. That's just me. I haven't always been that aware that that's me, and to an extent, I absolutely admit that in my early 20's I took forgranted those people who grounded me to my essence and for whom I would do anything. These are sitll the very few friends I would lay down on the tracks for, again, without question. And that they have stuck with me, too - then that only says more about how fucking incredibly wonderfully amazing they are (AB, AA, you are the two I am thinking about here. Even if you never read this, THANK YOU). OK, I have never cried while I wrote a blog entry before; this is the first time.

OK I'm crying so I have to stop writing. But this is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, so please don't be surprised if Part III comes up soon.