My Ugly Reflection

In my last post I mentioned that ten percent of all people we come into contact with will not like us. But, I had to think about friendships and women in general. Friendships for women, the younger the women the more this seems to be true, are very complicated. For us women, friendships are an extension of all our other relationships with the exception of intimacy. We love to spend time with our friends and we love to be in their presence. As women, we feel better having a friend around to talk with as we complete the most mundane tasks. But what happens when a friendship hits a rough patch? It’s almost a painful as a bad marriage.

 Now, I have had a few friendships “ go bad ”. Most of them stem from middle school to high school and a few in college and adulthood. But recent moments on the Oprah Show between Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi  put a mirror to my face about friendship and maturity.

 Just like most people, I look at the friends of my face book friends just to see who can see my posts and to later look at their pages and photos. Yes…I know this is some form of stalking but I know I am not alone. To make matters worse I have looked up a few people I don’t associate with anymore to see how bad their life must me since I am not in it. Yeah right!  I have found their lives to be as fruitful and happily blessed as my life has been without them.

 Every now and then, I will poke out a piece of an olive branch to see if they miss me in their lives as I have secretly missed them. To my surprise, they grasp that olive branch as if we were never apart. With maturity and age I have learned that true friendship can survive a lot more than a teenage squabble and spat.

 What I see in myself now, I would have denied only a few years ago. I had to learn to value friendship once I became alone. I had to walk alone to value the voices that were there to undergird me during my most pivotal years. I have had great friends along the way. But I missed the friends who knew the “back story”- the ones who had been there all along. It’s difficult to reach out but I believe it’s necessary to be whole and complete especially when you know you were wrong. It may not work but forgiveness is about extending the olive branch even if they never grasp it.