Ode to my best friend: I'm sorry & I love you.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” – Lewis B. Smedes

They say that the only thing guaranteed I life is death, but that’s not true. There are other things that are guaranteed to happen and one of those things is that people are going to hurt you. When people are an intricate part of your life they will hurt you. Some of these people will hurt you intentionally, others with be unintentional. Some will do so absentmindedly, out of selfishness and other’s because they just don’t care. Some don’t realize that they hurt you and others don’t know how to accept that they hurt you. You in turn will hurt people too. It is just the circle of life.

In the last several months, I have been faced with a ton of hurt. Some done on to me and others I have done on to other people and to myself. Recently, though I took a huge step towards forgiving someone very important in my life and it made me want to share with you all just how important forgiveness really is.

I have always said that I have been a “forgiving” person. Looking back on it I don’t know if that is really true. I don’t know if it was actual forgiveness I was giving people or if I was just tolerating shit. It may have been a little bit of both. I do however strongly believe that forgiveness is a very important aspect of moving forward in life, growing emotionally and shows strong maturity. My mom and I have this conversation all the time, in where she tells me she wishes she could be more like me, because of my forgiving ways, since she will hold a grudge until she dies. Like I constantly tell my mom, holding anger and resentment against and towards any one does not harm them, it harms you. I can’t walk around with that level of stress. I gotta let shit go. This does not mean every one you chose to forgive needs to stay in your life, some people can be forgiven and forgotten. But, when you decide to forgive and rebuild, I believe when it is done genuinely, beautiful relationships can flourish.

Anyway I’m sure ya’ll are tired of all that cliché stuff and you’re all sitting there like get to the point Ariel, what’s this blog about? Here it is…Three years ago, I lost my best friend. Just when I needed her the most, when my life was falling apart and when I was at rock bottom, she was gone. It was September 5th and I remember looking around at Aubrey’s funeral she wasn’t there. No text, no call. I was so upset I deleted her off social media, deleted her phone number and for the next three years we never spoke again.

Needless to say she hurt me really bad. Like, to the core. You see it’s very important for you all to know she and I were like one person. We had this ridiculous connection. She’s always felt like my soul mate. So when I needed her the most why wasn’t she there? She had her reasons, as most people do for any decision they make. You may not agree with her reasons, I may not agree with her reasons and at this point, she may not agree with her reasons and/or decision but in the moment it is what felt right for her. At this point in my life, in practicing peace and mindfulness I have learned that it is important to meet people where they’re at, and that’s where she was at in her life in September 2015.

Clearly, the very first emotion I felt was anger. Like is this chick (well not that nicely, but this is a PG blog) serious? I waited for the first couple of days to pass by to hear from her and crickets. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months. We share family in common she and I. Her cousin married my cousin (completely by coincidence) and they had two children. One she baptized, the other I did, and still we never crossed paths. I will admit I purposely avoided attending their functions not to run into her. She came up in conversation with my friends, my family members and of course with our mutual people. I heard what they shared of her version of why she was absent and I just wasn’t with it. It just didn’t make sense to me, but looking back I just wasn’t ready to even hear her version. I truly felt like her feelings weren’t valid and mine mattered more. I can be very selfish that way sometimes in prioritizing whose feelings should hold more weight and value. We’re all flawed, I’m working on it. We had mutual friends on social media and those I introduced to her I made them unfollow her, because I didn’t want to see anything pop up and bring about the anger in me again. But that anger turned into hurt and sadness and then a loneliness I didn’t realize was possible.

I lost my children, their dad, myself, so she was nothing right? Easy letting that go I told myself, especially when I put 100% of the blame on her. But it wasn’t as easy as I thought. Often times when a memory would come up on my Facebook I would check her page to see how her son was growing and what other things were going on in her life. I knew when she graduated College and I saw her 30^th birthday photos. I said to myself, I’m proud of her for pushing through and many times I felt jealousy of the people around her that they were enjoying her and I wasn’t. I knew she was working in the field of Child Welfare and I even would ask her co-workers who we had mutual cases with about her. I thought about sending her messages, especially for her birthday and would stop myself. I knew I missed her but the anger didn’t allow me to move forward and again my entitled self, felt like it was her responsibility to come to me. I was stuck in this almost pity state of “woe is me” because she hurt me. Truth is we both played a role in why this carried on so long.

One day, I’m minding my business and trying to rack up on my OT money and offered to assist my co-worker on a removal. I saw her talking with the Case planner and said to her “I had a good friend named Stephanie with that last name before that’s so funny” and thought to myself there’s no way and put it out my mind quickly. An hour later we’re at the home and she calls that same Case Planner and puts her on speaker. I heard her voice and my stomach fell into my ass. I was like “That’s Stephanie.” Stephanie heard me and said “who is that?” My co-worker replied “my co-worker Ms. Anderson.” Stephanie replied hey and that was that. So after everything in the car I turned to my co-worker who is actually my friend in real life and tell her with tears in my eyes what had happened with Stephanie and me. I even called my then boyfriend and told him that I heard her voice and I missed my friend. He says to me okay so call her. Nah fuck that bitch (whoops, so much for PG), still my pride was in the way. A few days later, we’re at court and this was the first time I saw her. She saw me and I stood in front of her talking to my friend/co-worker and still didn’t say a word to her. I felt the tension, I felt the discomfort and I felt the sadness from her with wanting to reach out to me, yet neither of us did anything. I still had an attitude and have this ability to make uncomfortable situations even more uncomfortable. Another flaw…

Fast forward about 8 months later, I’m at a new job and so is she. Her new job, is my old job. I kept thinking what would have happened had I stayed just a few months longer and saw her at work. I’ve actually put A LOT of thought in to this and honestly I would have died inside. I want to believe that I wouldn’t have made it uncomfortable for either one of us at work, but I don’t know if I would’ve been that mature. I’ve asked about her with co-workers I keep in touch with and I’ve heard she asked about me. This was dragging on too long and I often wondered what it was going to take for one of us to break the silence.

Recently, about six weeks ago my Godson’s mother and I are texting and she randomly tells me “Stephanie has told me she misses you, but she’s afraid of texting you because she’s afraid you’ll reject her.” I rolled my eyes because that’s what I do my attitude is atrocious sometimes but it took me less than a minute to realize that I was going to make the first move and end this silent war because I missed my other half. I asked for her number and sent the text…” Hi Stephanie…” to be honest I didn’t expect a reply so quickly and yet twenty seconds later she replied “Hey.” If I know anything about her, she cried as soon as her phone vibrated just as I did when she replied. She and I picked up right where things had left off. We spent that entire day catching up, talking, laughing and apologizing to one another, repeatedly. I promise you all, I felt like I lost 20 lbs. Harboring resentment is extremely heavy. The reason why I decided to make the first move to text her was because I realized regardless of what she was going to say to me, I had already forgiven her. I did not need to hear her explanation, although she felt like she needed to explain it to me. I even told her it’s okay, it’s okay and she was like sis, just let me tell you this… Ya’ll know how I feel about details, not really necessary but let’s just say she genuinely and from her heart expressed her remorse, accepted her responsibility and humbly asked me to forgive her.

I recently read an article on Forgiveness that truly helped me to be able to make this step. For starters this summer has been a shit show and I have been so overwhelmed and going through so many changes I needed my friend. Secondly, the resentment I was harboring was related to Aubrey and I have been trying so hard to let go of the bad feelings I have towards other people because I feel stuck in this turmoil and whirlwind of anger and it’s just plain unhealthy FOR ME. Thirdly, I am trying to mature. Let’s do thirty differently. So I went through four steps to find forgiveness and accept her back in my life.

Step One: Forgive Yourself.

I needed to forgive myself for several things in this situation to move forward. In order to do that I needed to re-evaluate my role in this and honestly accept my responsibility. Just because she was the one who made the obvious and tangible decision that led to the demise of our friendship I was not free of guilt. I could have easily hashed it out with her immediately. I could have told her how I felt and opened the lines of communication with her. I didn’t do that. My pride and my entitlement that I felt like SHE was the one who messed up therefore SHE needed to come to me held me back from communicating with my best friend. We were better than that and I failed us too. I had to sit down and forgive myself for my poor choices over the last three years with harboring anger, committing to poor communication, feeling entitled to my feelings and passing judgment against her for her choice to not be there when I needed her.

Step Two: Forgive the other person.

I told you guys earlier that Steph and I were like soulmates (this is actually her name in my phone) and she and I were one person, so because of this is why I felt like she NEEDED to be there. I didn’t even consider that because of this she couldn’t be there. The pain I was feeling was heavy for me AND heavy for her. She really did not know how to begin to digest my pain and how to be my friend. It may sound like an excuse, and most people won’t understand this but this is where she was at. In order, for me to truly forgive her I needed to be empathetic and understand that we don’t always respond the same to trauma, and the truth is we will all make decision in our lives that make us look back and say “damn, I messed up.” After talking to her I knew she was remorseful and that she understood the weight and damage of her decision. She had been punishing herself enough so who was I to continue to badger her for a bad choice like I was free of bad decisions and free from hurting people. Get off your high horse Ariel. We are all human and make mistakes.

Step Three: Trust yourself.

This was a step I didn’t realize that I needed to do, but it was super crucial in moving forward. I had to trust myself that I was going to be genuine in letting go of my feelings of hurt, anger and give her an honest chance at rekindling our friendship. I could say “I forgive you” but if I’m not being proactive and I constantly hold this over her head, then I’m not really forgiving her. I needed to trust myself in this decision to forgive, that I was going to give it my all AND I was going to be a good friend moving forward to her by being a better version of myself and owning my responsibility.

Step Four: Trust the other person.

This was the hardest thing to do. When someone caused you hurt and pain, it is because they have broken your trust. In moving forward, I had to trust that she had learned from this mistake, trust that she would not make this mistake again and trust that should she make any mistakes in the future she will respond differently and make any and all efforts to fix it immediately. This is so hard because the truth is there is no guarantee that trust won’t be broken in the future. But, trust is given in the hopes that it will be nurtured, appreciated and reciprocated. 

These four steps are important to apply to any one in your life with whom you are considering forgiving and working on rebuilding with. Nobody is free of guilt, hurt and pain. Nobody is perfect, we will all make mistakes and we all will have to ask for forgiveness at some point. Forgiveness is an opportunity to learn humility, responsibility, growth, acceptance, empathy and most importantly to nourish love. There is not one person whom we love, who will not hurt you, the beauty in love is the ability to repair and rebuild.

Ultimately for me and Stephanie it comes down to this… I got my best friend back. Truly, completely and wholeheartedly. I feel like I filled a void that had been missing for years. I am so happy that she’s back and that this time we’re going to do things so much better. Stephanie, my dear, I promise to do everything in the future to make sure you never leave again. I’m sorry and I love you.