Dear my friend,
I'm sorry I haven't been a good friend to you.
It's not that I've not listened. It's not that I've not been there. It's just I didn't say the things I needed to say.
Things like, "Seriously, get your head out of your butt before you really screw up". Or, "This is what you're spending your time on?" or even, "You are a freaking adult. Please act like one."
I'm not your keeper. I didn't take you to raise. I have no right saying any of these things to you. So I didn't.
By not saying this to you, I'm afraid that I conveyed the message that I approved of your actions. I don't.
You don't need my approval. I get that. Regardless of what I say, think, or feel I'm pretty sure you would do what you wanted anyway. It's your life and that's your choice.
If I was a better friend to you I would have said any of the above things, because I'm hilarious. Or maybe I would have said, kindly, "Please stop. Please consider the consequences. You have a family." Because I'm not hilarious all the time, and sometimes I really have a heart.
I didn't say that. Any of it.
If I was a better friend to you, I would have worried less about hurting your feelings and more about the long-term damage that I saw you doing to yourself.
Now everything is different. I'm on one planet and you are on another. Not my fault or yours, I suppose. Things like this happen sometimes. People drift apart.
I had to stop checking in on you as much, because I can't stand to see you fall down the rabbit hole. It makes me sad for your family. It makes me sad for you.
If you ever read this, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that for whatever reason you continue to chase things that will never happen instead of just being happy with what you have. I'm sorry you can't see what is right in front of your face. I'm sorry you took what could have really made you happy for the rest of your life and damaged it to the point that it can never be fixed again. I'm sorry that you can't see what I see when I look at you; someone who is so bright and full of potential that you nearly burst with it. Someone who deserves better than what you've been living with for the past few years.
I'm sorry I didn't try to intervene.
I don't know if it would have helped. I know, from life experience, that sometimes people are just so damaged and so self-destructive that it doesn't matter what you do. They'll destroy themselves either way.
I didn't try. I wanted you to like me. I wanted you to love me. I wanted to be close, and I was selfish.
I'm sorry.
Love,
Stephanie
2 comments:
I feel like I can relate to this, but moreso now that I have become actively involved in church. I think we have an obligation, as friends, to tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.
And that is hard.
I don't think that "pulling back" is being a bad friend. You have a husband, a life, a family to protect. (a heart, a sanity, etc.) I don't know what your friend has gotten involved in but sometimes there are levels of toxicity that we just can't allow to overflow into our lives. Unfortunately, sometimes people make choices and the consequences of those choices are the casualties of certain relationships...
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