Since my recent divorce and remarriage, I've had friends jumping the "Carissa friend-SHIP".
In all honesty, there hasn't been many… but there has been close friends-- people who I considered to be more like family have chosen sides when no one required it. I know I never did… For me, it wouldn't be fair to make friends choose between me and my ex-husband. It's childish and ridiculous. Besides, I don't dislike the man. I just didn't want to be married to him. There's a difference.
In all honesty, there hasn't been many… but there has been close friends-- people who I considered to be more like family have chosen sides when no one required it. I know I never did… For me, it wouldn't be fair to make friends choose between me and my ex-husband. It's childish and ridiculous. Besides, I don't dislike the man. I just didn't want to be married to him. There's a difference.
I've heard things like, "You didn't care what other people thought when you were getting divorced. You hid away because you knew I wouldn't agree with you… Why would you care now?"
or
"You've stood there, with your fists up, ready to knock anyone to the side if they don't blindly follow you."
or
"You've stood there, with your fists up, ready to knock anyone to the side if they don't blindly follow you."
The interesting thing is this…
I never expected people to blindly follow me. Nor to agree with me. My fists were and are always unclenched until someone directly attacks my character or my intentions without knowledge or justification. I never hid away, though, I will admit, for a time it was hard to get together with people. Not necessarily because I thought they might disagree with my life's direction… but because I was truly busy.
I had a new life to build. I had a new house to move into. I had to put my focus where it mattered most. Myself. My kids. My new spouse.
Everyone and everything else was, for lack of a better word, temporarily extraneous.
That included my blog. Facebook. Twitter. Even Pendomus.
Those friends who were true, understood the why.
Those who didn't, clearly were not.
Now that things have settled, I've been returning to a sense of normalcy. And extending my hand back out to friends and family previously outside my center of focus.
What I didn't expect was the hostility from those who I was mistaken about. Evidently, because I made a decision that was unpopular with them, I am no longer allowed to have feelings. About myself. About those around me. Because I wasn't as readily available, I was hiding. Yet, every friend who asked me to do something during my transition, I made time for if I could. If I couldn't, I offered suggestions for alternate times. Yet, that goes unnoticed.
I never expected people to blindly follow me. Nor to agree with me. My fists were and are always unclenched until someone directly attacks my character or my intentions without knowledge or justification. I never hid away, though, I will admit, for a time it was hard to get together with people. Not necessarily because I thought they might disagree with my life's direction… but because I was truly busy.
I had a new life to build. I had a new house to move into. I had to put my focus where it mattered most. Myself. My kids. My new spouse.
Everyone and everything else was, for lack of a better word, temporarily extraneous.
That included my blog. Facebook. Twitter. Even Pendomus.
Those friends who were true, understood the why.
Those who didn't, clearly were not.
Now that things have settled, I've been returning to a sense of normalcy. And extending my hand back out to friends and family previously outside my center of focus.
What I didn't expect was the hostility from those who I was mistaken about. Evidently, because I made a decision that was unpopular with them, I am no longer allowed to have feelings. About myself. About those around me. Because I wasn't as readily available, I was hiding. Yet, every friend who asked me to do something during my transition, I made time for if I could. If I couldn't, I offered suggestions for alternate times. Yet, that goes unnoticed.
If there's anything last year's narcissisticapades taught me, it's that people are going to form an opinion of you regardless of the truth. Regardless of YOUR own personal truth.So, in times like these… when people cannot see who you are beyond their own perception, it's time to let them go. Transitions are funny like that. People come and go.
With this wave knocking a few people from the boat, there will be others, willing to climb aboard.
And with any luck, those who do, will be true.
