It hurts when people let you down. It makes you take a hard look at yourself and wonder what’s wrong with you. Especially if more than one person has let you down, and it’s happened more than once.
When people let me down, it can be hard to remember that it’s more about my expectations of them than their behavior toward me.
I spent some time last week thinking about some of the people that I’ve lost over the years. I have been fortunate in that most of my losses have been in the form of evolving relationships rather than something like death. For many of these relationships, I know that I could reach out at any time again in friendship and things would be much the same because it was merely the circumstances of life that drifted us apart. For others, however, they faded from my life after very specific events.
Have you ever had a friendship fade? Have you ever been confused and hurt when someone you thought was a kindred spirit ghosts you? Have you hopped on social media to look someone up just because you wondered how they’re doing but don’t actually send a message or interact online in any way? Have you hoped that thoughts of you cross their minds sometimes, too?
I’ve written about friendships before. And my intention in writing about friendships today is not to throw anyone under the bus or passive aggressively air my grievances. My intention is to show my heart, to reveal the impulse to protect myself that so many of you likely share and to offer a challenge to all of us to resist that very impulse in the name of richer experiences, relationships and radical self acceptance.
When my friendships fizzle, I can talk about my mistakes. And I can own the possibility that what I thought was the next right thing was not the thing they needed from me to rebuild the trust or repair the connection. Maybe I didn’t know then what I know now. Maybe I still don’t know what I didn’t know then, and there’s nothing more to be said or done. Most days, I can accept that.
On some occasions, I can also find myself being pulled toward self pity. Feelings of worthlessness. I might tell a story that my friendship holds so little value that it will always be easily discarded.
I try not to stay there, though.
Relationships ebb and flow. And we each have our own path to follow. No one walks one road forever.
Some people are in your life for a reason. Some for a season. Some for a lifetime. Trying to make reason or season people into lifetime people won’t generally work out. And I think where a lot of the hurt comes from is our failing to identify each of the types of people in our lives. The expectation that someone in your life for a season should stay for a lifetime.
I always wanted lifelong friendships. I grew up with the children of my parents’ best friends. I created a story that this was how to do life. Together with best friends and their kids. I didn’t stay best friends with those kids, though. I even watched the friendship between our parents evolve. Most of the friendships I had as a kid changed and faded into the background noise of today’s social media feeds. There’s nothing good or bad or right or wrong about this. It’s how my life has gone. I have taken many paths that my friends have not. I have grown in different directions than they have. So what is it that I really miss when I find myself missing them?
Maybe I miss who I used to be when we were close.
Maybe my grief is as much for the loss of my prior self as it is for their presence in my life.
And I heard somewhere that grief is love left unexpressed. The love that grew and multiplied beyond the relationship’s capacity to contain it. I prefer to think of it this way, and release any anger or blame that might try to cling.
Have you had to grieve a relationship recently?
Your first impulse might be to put up a wall around your heart. To protect yourself from the hurt and heartache. You want to withdraw and keep your interactions superficial or professional. You bury the emotions and focus on the positive to an uncomfortable excess. You wonder if opening yourself up to someone “too much” will be too much for them to want to stay. And who decides what “too much” means, anyway?
Emotions are powerful. Love is immense and overwhelming. Feeling together can be terrifying.
So why show your heart?
Your immense and overwhelming emotions are what make you human. Your ability to feel so deeply and powerfully is one of the most important thrills of being alive. Passion inspires others, creates beauty, moves mountains. And if we shut down and close ourselves off to the flow of this power, we will surely miss out. Yes, you may not care so much about missing out on the pain when love goes unreceived or the rejection you feel when someone’s passions carry them away from yours. But you’ll also miss out on the magic that happens when your emotions uplift each other and rejoice in harmony together.
When you show your heart, when you take that risk to be vulnerable, you give someone else permission to show more of their heart, too. When you show your heart, you give yourself permission to live your life more fully. When you show your heart, you embody and reveal God’s own.
I want to invite you to show your heart today. This is a challenge because you might be afraid that whoever sees your heart won’t know how to respond. Because maybe you didn’t know what to do the last time someone bravely showed their heart to you. Do it anyway. Then do it again. This is as much a challenge and invitation to myself as it is for you. Show your heart so often and so fully that it expands and then expands some more.
Show your heart with intention and awe. Show your heart in celebration and sadness and frustration and grief. Show your heart’s range and capacity. Show your heart until it doesn’t matter anymore who shows you theirs or doesn’t. Show your heart until it becomes perfect for anyone else to shine with you. Show your heart until it’s okay for anyone else to run or hide. Show your heart until it becomes impossible not to show it.
What’s stopping you?