Revisit your favorite topic from the past week.
(Explain a lesson you had to learn.)
assignment 14
It turns out that no matter how much you think you love another person and how much you want to resolve a conflict in a friendship, you can't fix things unless the other person agrees.
My parents did the best they knew how to do — they had never been parents before me and everything was as new to them as it was to me.
Not everyone looks at the world in the same way that I do. Most people don't, actually.
You can't argue someone into falling in love with you.
Men have feelings. I have feelings. They have names. Though they're not always rational, I feel them because of reasons which I can analyze rationally.
To the extent that I am a mature and responsible adult now, a series of painful events surrounding my 25th birthday taught me several lessons. Perhaps most people learn them earlier. I wish that I had and less painfully. I'm glad to know them however.
In the spring, I had a very important relationship fall apart with almost no explanation. We were spending her birthday weekend together when she suddenly closed up, offering only the explanation that she felt uncomfortable.
She cut off all communication at that point. I tried calling. I wrote a letter. I spent several months worrying and wondering until one day, finally, I gave up.
I tried everything I knew how to do: apologizing, reasoning, bargaining, yelling (in private), and crying (in private). I couldn't understand. If only we could talk, we could figure out what happened and resolve it. I wanted to resolve things so badly, surely it was possible. I wanted to know what happened so much, because only then could I understand.
Sometimes you will never know what happened. Sometimes you can't understand. Sometimes you won't find a resolution.
After spending weeks feeling a physical pain where my heart is, I sat down and really thought about what happened. After several months, I started to realize what I really felt.
I felt confused. I like puzzles — I like solving them, but I don't like feeling frustrated when none of the pieces even start to fit. Still, I feel a drive to solve the puzzle, to figure things out, to make my little universe tidy and complete again.
I felt angry. I deserved an explanation. I deserved respect. I deserved better. All of those things are true, but people don't always give you what you deserve.
I felt lonely. One of the most important parts of my life had disappeared without warning. Where could I turn for support without one of the people who supported me the best?
I felt hurt and betrayed. I had plans that included her. What would happen then? I'd opened my heart. Wasn't that worth something?
Finally I decided that I'd done all that I could do. If we would ever talk again, she would be the one to decide. (The fact that she'd moved and changed her phone number had a lot to do with this too.)
Several weeks after my birthday, she called me, offering a vague apology and not giving me her number. She promised to stay in touch more frequently but didn't explain what had happened, either to prompt her silence or to change her mind. I wish I could say that I was cautious, but I wasn't. I thought things might improve. They didn't. They just changed.
Sometimes change is just change. Sometimes it's not better or worse, only different.
I felt helpless and unsettled. She held all the power. She wanted a friendship on her terms — when she needed me, she'd call. She'd vent. She'd listen to what I had to say and never take my advice.
I also learned then that offering unsolicited advice is often a mistake. Sometimes people just want you to listen. Talking can ruin that.
No matter how much I wanted the situation to go back to how it was, it couldn't. She wasn't the person I thought she was. I wasn't the person I had been. I'd learned too much I should have known before.
Sometimes letting go is the best thing you can do. Sometimes you have to take care of yourself when taking care of someone else eats away at you.
I do still believe that any two people who love each other can work out any disagreement they have if they are open, honest, and both want to come to an agreement. We weren't those two people though.
I've never figured out what she wanted, not really. I've made peace with that, however. When I said goodbye, I tried to do it with dignity and finality.
No matter how much you want to yell and curse and hurt another person, sometimes the best thing you can do is to walk away softly. Part of me thinks that was the only way to make her pay attention. Another part of me wonders if it's wrong to think that first thought.
Her motivations were much different from mine. Her goals were also very different. We had our similarities, but they weren't what I thought they were. It sounds foolish now, but I really thought that we could reconcile them as if they were mere preferences, not the principles by which we lived our lives.
Maybe most importantly, I learned that I could be very very wrong about people and situations. I thought I was mature. I thought I understood people. I thought I had the wisdom and maturity to face everything life could throw at me.
Now I know better. I can recognize differences in people. I can look at my feelings, sort them out, and understand the actions and my reactions that lead to the way I feel. I learned patience through being impatient.
I know what it takes to face the loss of a long-trusted friend. I hope never to face it again. Yet I know that I can handle it. I've lived through it.