i wrote a little post on my tumblr about missing having a best friend and i have more feelings that i want to expand on regarding that.
in the past 20 years there were three people that i have considered to be my "best friends." there are a few recurring themes between these losses. they all ghostied me and had a lack of accountability. two of them had jealousy issues and were possessive.
it's a little pathetic on my part but i did eventually get an explanation and some closure from the first one after chasing it down harder than i should have. i'm glad that i did because she left me with some lovely gifts and i am forever grateful for our final encounter. i don't need to do this with the other two because i can process what happened on my own. they deserve nothing but to watch me fly higher than i ever have without their weight on my heart.
people seem to really hate it when i set my boundaries clearly, especially when i am putting limitations on my emotional labor. i think the hard part for them is that i put a mirror in their faces and they don't dare to look.
it took me a while to realize what was really going on in my last romantic relationship. i considered that boy to be my best friend. we spoke for hours every day but now that i think about it, our conversations were only surface level and superficial, just like him. we got along near perfectly when it came to things that don't actually matter. i found myself seeking friendships outside of him(perfectly normal thing to do btw) and he hated that. i'm not sure if it's because he knew that i would see my value after meeting other people or if it was because i would see what he was lacking. when i mentioned that i wanted to get into an MMORPG again because i missed the social aspects of them he said that i didn't. lol. i realize that the reason that i so desperately wanted to find new friends was because something important was missing in our relationship; my need to have my depth met or even just acknowledged and seen. like, actually when i think back on it now, the times that i cried always involved him belittling me for having more complexity and soulfulness than he could appreciate or comprehend. the strangest example is when i brought up the memory of believing that i was an alien when i was 4 years old because of how isolated i felt and he said that i was "a stupid child." kinda infuriating hearing that from someone that can't even recall their childhood. he very clearly had no capacity for self reflection and growth and those are the qualities that i love the most in people. i genuinely think he hated those things about me. probably because those are the things that make me shine in a way that he wasn't brave enough to aspire to. i don't really need to go on about it, but he did several mean things that should have shown me how narcissistic he was. he ruined days that were supposed to be celebrations with that self-centered behavior. i think his insecurities made him want to put me in a cage and they ran so deeply that they seeped into me and made me act ugly. his insecure behaviors brought out my own ancient codependency and abandonment wounds that i had previously addressed and healed several times over. i guess at the very least it was worth it to acknowledge them one last time to put them to rest forever. you can't cage a phoenix, little bro.
i remember that when i ended things with him it was exactly 4:44 as i said the words. i couldn't even cry about it after the call. the instant that i finally broke free my spirit guides immediately returned to me with a physical embrace and filled my heart center with pure bliss and love energy. this is how i knew that i made a big important step in the right direction.
in some ways these experiences have hardened me and have made me put some walls up to guard my heart. i have a tendency to overextend myself for the people that i care about even when they don't reciprocate and i needed to learn how to forcefully assert my boundaries. there is a balance to this though. i still want to give everything to the people that respect me and actually deserve it and most importantly want to grow with me. my middle name is still love, after all.