Now You Wanna FRIEND Me?

Several years ago a man that I loved very much broke up with me. While this is something that I hear happens in life with alarming regularity, for various unworthy reasons, it is not something that has happened to me much. I was the Ender, the Runner, the Non-commital one in the majority of my relationships, both big and small.  After that break up, I wrote this depressing little diddy called Every Word You Said. Aside from venting my frustration about being left flapping in the wind, I had much to say about the apparent lies the man had fed me during our long relationship. 

Merritt Malloy said, "Relationships that do not end peacefully, do not end at all."  Social networks like Facebook are booming, in large part, because of the regret that lingers for years after we have walked away from each other. Oh, we say we have no regrets because having regrets is immature. Ironically, immaturity is at the core of most of those bad break-ups, isn't it? But, like it or not, all these relationships have an impact on us. All those people are not just mistakes, but teachers too. We learned. And we should be thankful.

For a long time it felt as though every one of my relationships ended because I went on auto-pilot with one the one goal of proving to my other half that he did not love me as he thought he did. 

I was young. I was dumb. I was not easily guided.  

While I couldn't focus on the solutions to my relationship struggles, I was able to navigate quite well through the debris after. For me, the years after a relationship ended were like the moments after a hard storm. Everything looked bright and I was thankful for being alive. I clearly remember one significant other angrily screaming at me during our break up, "I know YOU'LL be fine! YOU are always fine!" 

Still, I was not always the one dealing the blows. I've been the bird in the cage, the stunned victim of abuse, and the one who was betrayed. I know what it is like. Very hard to look at your demolished life and imagine doing anything with your abuser other than pushing him off the nearest cliff. That's why I'm thankful for time. Time to process. Time to accept. Opportunity, no matter how many years have passed, to say I'm sorry. Opportunity to forgive. That may be why I still keep contact. I am looking for the moment when we can both say we learned from our failure and did not let it make us bitter.

Yes, I'm THAT woman. The one who remembers all the past loves and wants us all to be Facebook Friends.

I am confused by the lack of clarity with which people regard their past lovers, friends and ex-spouses. When someone speaks hatefully about an ex-spouse, especially if the couple had children together, I am... well, lost. I can't fathom it. I can't understand it. 

I read the profiles of my exes. I sometimes read the Twitter updates and the blogs of those in their lives too. It is a casual and non-consuming thing I do - checking in on the lives of those who once considered me family.  While I don't use a great deal of time doing this, I am also not ashamed that I care what happens to these people. I am not ashamed that, though my love for them is changed, it is not gone. I quietly rejoice in their new loves, accomplishments and happiness. And I even more quietly, still feel their sadness when things are not so right for them. 

I have been told by some that this is not a normal thing to do, that it's unhealthy. But I can't imagine that it would be healthy for me to connect with people and disconnect like love is some sort of switch that I can flip on and off. 

 

After the end of a relationship, when the dust settles, you should take another look at that person you extracted from your heart. You should also take another look in the mirror. And if you are the compassionate, honest person you attempt to be, you will find a way to look past the stupid things you both said and did. There are a million reasons why relationships don't work out. Unfortunately, we often get so fixated on the debris of a fallout that we forget that at the core of the situation are two people who wanted to make each other happy. 

If we forget the laughs, the irreplaceable happy moments that a past love brought to our lives, the least we can do is this. Acknowledge that we did learn from that person. That, in itself, is valuable. Those lessons, it seems should generate enough respect for those in our past that we regard them with smiles instead of anger or fear or complete apathy. No, we don't have to be Facebook Friends. We don't have to "pretend nothing ever happened". But we can be gentle and kind. We can move on without destroying all the good that once was.

I recently heard from an old friend of mine who was once an integral part of my daily life. We hadn't spoke in four years. We talked about the past and important things we did together. It was nice. And then he said something I wasn't expecting. He said he learned a lot from me.  I can't explain how wonderful it felt to have that nostalgia, that friendly thank you, returned to me. Becoming friends with an old love isn't necessarily going backwards, you know. It's more so moving forward, when you do so peacefully.

When people ask me why I am still friends with my exes, I explain that it's because I CAN. And I'm happy about that.