A favourite movie of mine is Friends with Money. It's about a group of friends in their 40's who have made their careers but one. She ends up as a maid.
One of the subplots is would you be friends with someone if you met them at this later stage in your lives and not when you were younger? The character who makes the comment about this, said no. She has nothing in common anymore with her friend from college who ends up as a maid.
I have been coming back to this scene in the film a fair bit. I finally had to admit that my longest friendship was not even a real friendship, and it hadn't been for years.
The question I asked myself out loud in the mirror was "why are we friends?"
My answer was automatic almost not even giving myself a second to breathe -"we're not friends because we're friends. We're friends out of habit"
We met when we were kids, me 7 and her 5. Our friendship for the first ten years was one that was as close as sisters. Then high school happened.
Looking back on things now, that should have been the end of it, but it wasn't. I hung in there. Even when I shouldn't have, I clung on for years.
In removing myself from as much drama as I can, the last month or so, I had to ask what kind of friend would make constant remarks about my religion, my weight, my career dreams, etc.
The answer was one who isn't really there for me. I also had to admit, that if it wasn't for me making the phone calls, trying to organize visits, etc there would be no contact between us at all.
So why was I hanging on to a friendship that was long dead? Habit I suppose. This was a 30+ habit that I just had to get over.
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