Brilliant

Brilliant, just bloody brilliant.

On my lunch (dinner) break at work tonight, I called Scott and talked with him for a half hour. That's it. I just talked to him. I am stunned each and every time I talk to Scott to hear how much a wonderful human being he is, how intelligent he is, and how much he thinks.

While on another topic (parents and such), Scott said something that resonated in me.

He said, "Love is not conditional." Is this a new saying? No. It's not.

I've heard this before and it hit me harder tonight than any time in my past. I started thinking about a situation I have going on and it helped clear my head.

Scott's phrase solved something in my crazy thought process and it helps me deal with the problem (or lack of the problem) that's been going on.

Okay, super quick synopsis of the problem: I have not talked to a certain friend of mine in over three weeks. This may not seem like a long time to most but in the context of this friendship, it is a long time. This is a person I used to spend 15 hours a day with. I built a lot of my life around this friendship and to not have it in the forefront has bothered me. What especially bothered me was to not even get a hello, an email, or a phone call for my birthday. Written here, it seems trivial. And it is. There is a whole history of discounting and differing opinions of friendship with this person and so it was the "final straw". Yeah, right.

Trying to end a friendship is hard. It's not hard to end the friendship itself, but it's very hard to come to a conclusion about whether or not one wants to end a meaningful part of their life just because of an emotion called hurt.

I don't want to end the friendship at all. I want it back. It means that much to me. So I allow myself to get hurt over and over again. Why am I hurt? Because I have higher expectations of friendship and I thought the friendship was worth so much more.

I love this friend. He's like family. He's like a brother to me. I want this friendship. I enjoy his company. I just have doubts on whether or not he likes my friendship. That's where it hurts. I don't feel valued in the friendship and I wonder if I'm making a fool out of myself, working for something that is not two-way. I love him in the same way I love Dana, Keem, Matt, and Scott.

He's someone that I want at my wedding (someday in the far-off future). I want to be there when he gets married (and he deserves to get married just as much as any heterosexual does!). I want to watch his children grow up and share hopes and dreams with him as we have in the past. I want my best friend back.

And I wonder if he wants the same.

So when Scott said, "Love is not conditional" I thought about friendship. Friendship is a form of love. It is. Friends are the family you get to pick. I believe that in my soul. I think circles of friends are more important than minor acquaintances.

And my circle will get smaller if he's not in it. And that hurts too.

I get angry at him when I get hurt. I get mad at myself for letting myself get hurt. And yet, I still WANT this person in my life. To have him so distant from me hurts. And saying goodbye hurts even more.

So friendship is unconditional too. It's hard to go into something saying nothing will bother you. The actions do bother me, but I still love him as a person. I still want to know him as a friend. I guess I'm saying I don't want to end the friendship. I don't know how to mend it anymore, I lost all grips on that a long time ago. I wonder if it's beyond repair. I hope not. I know I can't go on being the only contributor to the friendship, but I'm not asking for too much, am I? I just want to spend time together a little more often. Hey, we work together. Is it too much to ask for five minutes of one's day to chat? Those five minutes mean the world to me.

Sorry for the tangent tonight. I guess I just wanted to say that Scott is brilliant and I am thankful to have him in my life. He's amazing and I want to spend more time with him too.

4 Comments:

At 4:52 PM, The Lioness said...

First off, I read the 1st sentence and SERIOUSLY thought I'd landed in my blog. Am I infecting you??? PELASE SAY YES. It would make me soooo cool!

Now. I am sorry you are going through that. It was one of the toughest things in getting older, the filtering of friendships. I have been meaning tow rite a post abt that, the circles of friendship for the longest time but haven't got round to it yet. Beth, it is NO small thing, no way. Someone who is lucky to be your friend IRL and doesn't use the chance? I don't know. I don't know what is going on but this much I've learned. We can deal with all losses. I've lost 2 very good friends. One of them was like a sister (they're both still alive, it's not that). And life goes on and I often still miss what we had but if I'm not valued, if they have what you'd call unrsolved isssues, I'm very unwilling to pay the price. I know what I am worth. I have loads of faults God knows but I am loyal. Someone hurts my lovely ones, I want to hurt them back. Claws and all. Sometimes we have to let go and mourn the loss. I'm not saying this is the case, again, I don't know enough. But your gut is surely trying to talk to you. Listen to what it's got to say. You will survive it all, believe me. I wish you luck with this, and no further heartache. HUGS AND KISSES.

At 1:55 AM, brooksba said...

Hi Lioness,

You are infecting me some. I thought of you when I wrote the first sentence. There are some influences from British movies and such, but you're probably the main one. =)

Thank you for your words of support. I'm still trying to decide what to do with this situation, I've given up on people before and I told myself once I would never do that in this case. And it feels like if I give up, I'm not just giving up on his company but giving up a part of myself. It's hard. I'll probably have more posts about this in the future, but they are hard to write.

Thank you again. Your support is wonderful. I wish we lived closer and I could know you IRL.

Beth

At 8:46 AM, CarpeDM said...

Hey. Scott is right. Love is not conditional.

However, I'm going to quote an old friend of mine (Becky) when she said "Once you love someone, you always love them. You just may not always like them very much." And it's true. Nothing keeps you from continuing to love him, I still love him. But I'm not overly happy with him. And I don't particularly like him for what he's been doing, or I should say, not doing.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I think you rock and it's not you that's giving up. You have continued to try to reach him. I'll talk to you later.

At 8:29 PM, Matt said...

Little Sister,
You are right about Soctt, he is brilliant. Sometimes he scares me with his brillance, but then again that is why I love him as much as I do. As for you, you are just as brillant and have also earned my respect, devotion, love and above all friendship. I know ho hard this has been for you, and like Dana I also love him, but I do not like the way that he acts. That was the most important, and hard thing for me learn, it wasn't that I was hating him, I was hating his actions. It took a long time for me to realize that, and now that I have, he has felt the loss of a truly great friend, because why would I want to spend time with a person that does not even care if I am there or not? I am glad to hear you say that you are doing better about this, I did not liek seeing how it was tearing you apart. As always, I will always be there for you, and I will never let that waiver. You are my Little Sister, that is soemthing that I hope never changes.
Matt