Frenemies

This morning on the British version of 'The Talk', 'Loose Women', one of their topics was on whether or not friendship breakups are equal to breakups with a partner.
I haven't experienced a breakup upsetting enough to equate the loss of a friendship but I definitely think a friendship breakup is on the same level as some relationships.

As Nadia Sawalha said on 'Loose Women' today, we fall in love with friends in certain ways.
We get to know these people and connect over similar interests and we end up seeing them as much as we're able to.
You bond with your friend, telling secrets, getting life/love advice from them, consoling and being consoled by them...
Friendships are incredibly important relationships in our lives as we learn from these people and grow with them.
The friendships you have in life end up defining you.

But you shouldn't keep friends in your life out of some sense of duty.

I have one friend from primary school that I'm still in touch with. 16 years later and we're still as close as ever. She's lived twenty minutes away from me my whole life and, although we've gone down different paths, she still makes me feel just as important and included as she did when we saw each other every day in school.
We've had hiccups though.
We went to different high schools for a few weeks and I worried we'd stop being friends altogether.
The phone calls grew less and less frequent and we both made new friends.
We worked through it though.
She came to my high school in the end and, even though I had a new best friend (an amazing, fun, bubbly, kind and driven girl I automatically idolized), we stayed close.
She's the only person I've been on holiday with and we have so many memories together that life without her just isn't conceivable.

My high school best friend is a regret.
Not because I regret our friendship but I ended up being really naive and stupid and we said things out of anger which caused the ending of one of the most important friendships of my life.
Our other friend, who I also lost, was someone I ended up talking things through with after a few months and we were able to work it out and she's one of my favourite people in the world. She's funny, sarcastic, talented and absolutely incredible.
I'm glad we saved our friendship but I hate how I lost them both at that time.
My best friend in high school is someone I still admire and respect. I see her, from time to time, and we catch up like old friends. I'm so incredibly grateful for that. I didn't lose her completely, even after my mistake.
But it'll never be like it used to be and I have to accept that.
Losing two friends at once, although it was through my own idiocy, was awful.
I got really low, didn't want to leave the house or talk to anyone and gained weight (I went up two dress sizes). It was awful.
Definitely as painful as a breakup.

Since then, the main friendship I've lost is the girl from nursery.
With that, the break wasn't sudden and it wasn't my fault so I don't carry any guilt from that as I know I tried everything I could to save it.
It still hurt though, despite her phasing me out over time.
I used to love how different we were and how close we were. I could tell her anything and our families had known each other for years. We experienced so much together, all for her to decide I wasn't worth her friendship 17 years later.

But losing a friend you've had for almost 20 years isn't, necessarily, a bad thing.
I'm talking about it broadly and not just my experience.

You grow as you get older; emotionally and spiritually.
You're not always going to have the same friends you've had since you were five years old because things change.
People change, move, gain new experiences and new friends...
Circumstance is a funny thing.
Once you leave school or a job or a city, you find out the people who you were only friends with because you saw them every day.

The people you meet along the road are going to shape you and your experiences in life will mean you might not have room for people you no longer share anything in common with and that's okay.

But it's important not to keep toxic people in your life ('frenemies') as they'll only hold you back from your dreams and goals.

That's all from me!

Jessica
xoxo

Life Lessons Aren't Always Easy To Learn

You can't just keep expecting people to change. You can hint it to them and tell them how frustrated you are with their actions for years but they'll never change unless they make the decision to. 

I'm having difficulty practicing what I preach right now because it's hard to let go of that hope. You grow up around someone and watch them make the same stupid mistakes all the time and they never learn. When you get older, you try and talk to them about your personal issues and how they could help themselves but, ultimately, you can't change people. 

It's one of the hardest lessons in life to learn but also one of the most important. 

No matter how much you love someone and hope they will change, they're never going to be the person you need them to be. 

So you have two choices: you can live with it and accept them for how they are or you can move on from them and try to cope that way. 

For me, it's someone in my family. Someone you're supposed to love and respect unconditionally. 

I love her, with all my heart, but I find it impossible to look at her in the way I'm expected to. 

I don't respect her choices, I don't understand her actions and some of the things she's done have really affected me emotionally. 

But she has good points. 

She's kind, her heart is in the right place (most of the time) and she tries hard with me. Most of the time. 

Unfortunately, it's the difficult times that tend to make you reflect the most and, for me, I have to decide whether or not I can cope with having it feature in my life prominently. 

It's impossible to cut her out of my life completely and I don't want that. 

If she wasn't who she was, I would have done. A long time ago. 

But it's trickier than that. 

I don't think I'm ever going to stop hoping and praying she'll change one day but I hope I can learn to stop trying. 

It might take me moving far away for it to happen but I'm willing to accept that. 

There's only so much of yourself you can give to a difficult situation before it consumes you.

Jessica

xoxo