Desertion and Just Deserts

Life has really been good lately, it's just that I turn to my blog when I need to reason through unhappy things.

When I put the kibosh on an until-then close friendship I thought was unhealthy and harmful, I just... stopped. It was such an investment of time and at that point heartache that I couldn't think of how to deal with it, I just knew that I needed to stop it. People I loved-- everyone I loved except the other half of the friendship-- had been telling me for years that it wasn't a good relationship to be in, and looking back a couple years later I don't know if that feedback poisoned things or if my experience feeling like I could be a valued friend as new relationships were founded made me not want to be with a person who I felt didn't value me. I distinctly remember thinking the latter over and over and over. That was absolutely how I felt. With time between then and now, I don't know that it was objectively true.

It's done at this point. I have these little flutters of conversation with my old best friend, my former best friend, now, via Facebook. And I still love those little shimmery bits; they're fun. I wish I'd proceeded differently before so none of this was tinged with regret, so we could just laugh at what's funny because fucked up parts of the relationship aside, girl and I were a riot a minute.

I can think of what I would do differently now: I would say something. We will never be so close again, even if I were able to get out a perfect articulation. I am still not very good at saying something, but I understand at this point that what I did (by not doing anything) was damaging in a way I didn't desire or intend. So I hope that I would say something. Sometimes I dream about what to say.

Sad that I find myself wanting to say something to another close friend-- not a replacement, because the friendship I was talking about before wasn't really replaceable in any sense, good or bad-- and find myself just as frozen; not sure of what to say. I don't know if the problem is me or her. I can't tell if my standards are messed up, if her behavior really is as objectively irritating and inconsiderate as I think it is. But I know that I know this feeling of recoil and frustration because it is exactly what I felt before.

I share my heart with my husband now, and a fantastic part of that is the marrow-deep peace I get knowing that I can tell him what scares me most, what I hate most, things about me that are not nice;  all of these and he will keep loving me not because he is an idiot but because his love for me is that big, and isn't shaken by flaws. I think I am worthy of that but know it isn't the stuff every relationship is made of.

I don't want to be a person whose love is shaken by flaws. I'm judgmental and much slower to love than I was. I don't want to cling to this troubled friendship for the sake of having a friend, but I do not want to desert again. I'm so turned off by behavior patterns of the last few months that I'm unconvinced continuing the friendship is a good idea and I feel alienated to the point of not wanting to have a "Hey, I've noticed..." discussion, but I feel like it would be wrong to sever ties the way I'm inclined.

It boils down in part to not feeling like I can be honest, like I don't want to enumerate all the flaws I'm perceiving. And in the end, that's my feeling. I resent being treated badly (or feeling like I'm being treated badly), but my feelings are more under my control than what other people do.

Wavering, wavering. Trying to be cautious. Why does speaking up scare me so much?