A note on friendship

Friendship is a funny thing.

Or maybe I am a funny thing.

I once had a friend who was a close friend for a long time but she had a very bad habit.

She would pick me up and put me down when it suited her. For years it was like this and I would quietly put up with it.

She was a lot of fun, but not very loyal. Ironically though she once invited me out as an "example" of what a good friend looked like to someone who had picked her up and put her down a couple of times. She actually told me this, as if I should be happy and pleased. That I had been picked up again.

This I think says more about me. What it says about me I am not sure. Yet.

I put her down and haven't been in touch with her since we went for lunch and she suggested that my unhappiness was being caused by my then boyfriend.

Not recognising that she was criticising my shield.

The man protecting me from the source of the pain, teaching me how to stand up for myself, teaching me to believe in myself and teaching me to respect myself. None of that was to do with my relationship with her for the record.

So I stood up for myself and I walked away.

My friends know they hold a special place in my heart and I wont pick them up or put them down as and when it suits me.

I think relationships do change, some you need more than others. Life changes and circumstances change that make your friends either stand up to be counted or quietly blend into the background and disappear at the hardest parts in your life.

I think that's normal and I think its natural.

I am pleased that we were friends for such a long time. I just wish I had learned to stand up for myself earlier though.