Goodbyes are hard, but necessary

I often take time to review all of the people I am connected with through Facebook and can’t help but smile. There is so much diversity there. I’m connected with family and friends, but also friends from high school, friends from different stages in my life, people I have worked with through writing gigs, people I knew through a writing website, people I knew at various publishing companies and people I worked with through different jobs I have had. There are also people I connect with through writing projects as well as for the purpose of my newsletter. And now I am connecting with people in my capacity as Executive Editor at Twisted Dreams Press. All of those connections tell different stories about various chapters of my life. It is really something.

 

I should also note that I am connected with others on other social media platforms. I don’t just connect with people on Facebook, because not everybody I know is on Facebook. Some of them mostly use Instagram or TikTok or Bluesky. (It is for this reason alone I joined these other platforms!)

 

In most cases, my online connection with certain people through social media is the only way I know them and can communicate with them. This is because of them living too far away for me to see them in person or because we have gone in different directions in life and can no longer have in-person interactions, so we are connected only through social media. The latter is the case with a lot of people I have worked with at different jobs. These people were not JUST my boss, my manager, or my coworker. They are people I came to call friends, even if they did not see me as a friend in return.

 

And just as so often can happen with friendships, they can come to an end. Even when we don’t want them to.

 

There is one person in particular I used to work with who I considered to be my friend. We stayed connected through Facebook after I left that job, but at one point later on, she unfriended me and no longer communicated with me at all. I have a suspicion it was because of some things I said on Facebook when I shared an article, about how I did have one coworker in the past who micromanaged me. I didn’t name anyone, but I guess if the shoe fits, wear it! Even so, this was not meant as a way to passively aggressively lash out at anyone in particular. I was merely stating facts. I happened to come across that particular article to read at that particular time and I shared it because that’s what I did at the time. And that’s what I went through! (The other coworker I also did not mention was a narcissist, and I am not alone in recognizing him as much! It was hell to work with him. Seriously.) At that time, I shared everything that I read online! I was not actively hunting for something to share to hurt someone with. Anyway, if she got mad at me about that, she could have said something, but instead she decided to cut me off. And, apparently, she is not interested in communicating with me to talk about stuff or have any online connection with me, let alone a friendship.

 

That’s something that I realized yesterday, as I reviewed yet another attempt to reach out to her through Instagram. I am not able to send people who do not follow me in return more than one message on Instagram. I had sent her one months ago apologizing for hurting her (if that is indeed what had happened), but I guess she never read it. She never followed me back, even after I left a couple of positive comments on her posts.

 

And I realized, you know, I was wasting my time here. I was basically chasing someone to rekindle a friendship who was not interested in rekindling a friendship. And I realized that I had to let her go, because if someone doesn’t want me around, then I am not going to bother with them. I am not going to waste my time asking for something that will not be given. And I am not going to force something like a friendship with another person. It’s either there or it’s not.

 

It wasn’t, so I had to say goodbye.

 

Yes, it was hard. Yes, it was painful. I did want a friendship with this person, but I guess that was asking too much. I guess she just wanted to stay mad and hold this grudge against me instead of setting things right, allowing forgiveness to take place, and rekindling a friendship.

 

Goodbyes are always hard, and they are always painful. But sometimes, goodbyes are necessary. It’s just time to move on. It’s time for the next chapter of a person’s life. It’s time for change because, even if we don’t know it now, there’s a bigger change waiting for us later on down the road. We don’t know it, but it’s there. We just need to get rid of all the dead weight in life first. The things holding us back. The things tying us down. The things preventing us from moving forward and embracing change so that the bigger change can happen.

 

Life is funny like that. There are things that are waiting for us and we don’t know about it at all or can even predict them, but they are there. They are in our path, but to get to them, we must first let go of other things. Even if we don’t want to.

 

Me saying goodbye to people does not mean that I hate them. I don’t hold grudges. I understand that things happen for a reason and that life flows on different wavelengths. I wish them well and hope they heal. I DO also wish they’d know that I am sorry for the pain I caused them, but I guess that can’t happen.

 

I am not perfect. Yes, I am sober now. Yes, I am no longer influenced by or in cahoots with toxic people I knew in the past. Yes, I have learned from my mistakes, but that doesn’t mean I won’t make other ones. We all make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. We all mess up. What matters is that the friendship or the connection is strong enough to withstand every storm and every hurdle thrown at it, so that the people involved recognize that their friendship with someone is more important than allowing a misunderstanding or a mistake to ruin it.

 

I wanted this person in my life, and I still do. But I understand now that she will no longer be in it anymore. It makes me sad, yes, but I accept it. I can’t force a friendship. For this reason, I cherish the time that we were friends and I am grateful for the time that I did know her and got to interact with her. I am grateful for that time we were friends. Maybe we’ll be friends again someday. I don’t know. But I accept that my friendship with her is over and that I can no longer have any connection to her at all.

 

I don’t like losing friends. I would LOVE to stay connected with people in some form for the rest of my life. But I know that we all lose friends every once in a while. It’s a painful situation to go through, especially if we cared very much for that person and maybe knew them for a long time or went through things with them. But we all lose friends. We all lose people. I think losing friends happens because it causes us to appreciate the friends that we still have.

 

I am grateful for the friends that I DO still have. And I am grateful for the friends who take the time to reach out and talk to me about things or send me a message saying “what you did was uncool” and allow for the chance to work things out and the opportunity for forgiveness to take place. Sometimes space and time are needed if someone who is hurt is angry because of a mistake, but allowing for the possibility to rekindle the friendship at some point in the future helps us to grow and get in better touch with our feelings. And, I think, that can only make the renewed friendship not only something worth holding on to, but something that is just a little bit stronger.