'Friends come and go, ultimately, you'll have to learn to cope by yourself'

Hello Beautifuls!!

I hope you’ve had a great start to the year, acting on those resolutions while being kind to yourself**!! 

I was at the gym yesterday when I heard a lady say this to her friend, who glumly looked to the side and scoffed almost as though the other friend was assumed to be self righteous.

I couldn’t help but wonder, if this was the anthem of the lonely, the weak, the survivalists or the realists.

Growing up, my sister and I didn’t really have friends, we were only really allowed to play outside way later hence most people never knew we’d lived there our entire lives, my first friend (outside of my sis) that I remember was a girl called Wendy, this was grade 6, we moved schools often before then so finding Wendy was amazing, she was so kind and so sweet, she’d just laugh at my awkwardness and eat lunch with me.

As I look back through the years, I realized that I’ve always battled to fit in specially in high school where there was an expectation to fit... because of this, I was always in my head, processed there, coped there, made decisions there and a whole bunch.. I never shared.. I still battle to share intense stuff, but I did carry the secrets of the world, in the misfit I was, everyone knew I could carry all secrets imaginable and they would never see light.

Hearing this conversation sparked my interest cause I’ve always wondered the abnormality level, if even, of holding onto so much.

I remember in my first year of varsity I saw a shrink (psychologist), once a week I think it was, I stopped seeing her at the end of the year cause I figured, I wouldn’t always have an ear and I’d have to find a way to cope, that’s what adulting was anyway, so I left her. And continued to live largely in my head.

I realize that the inability to share is a weakness.. but also think we live largely in a dependent world where if its not shrinks its drugs, if not drugs it’s an overwhelming obsession where we can hide and the question of friends being a highway is also true. 

It’s you that has to learn to deal... considering friends aren’t always right, they also project their fears and upbringing into the advice you often get, it’s not just you, it’s a mirror of what they’d do if they could.. and do they ever do this?

I later saw the same ladies as the same giver of advice showed the other the cleanser to use, the moisturizer that works best and a whole lot of giving... It felt like the advice giver had been through a bit, she’d learned to toughen up.. she was hard and overwhelming in no bad way but still a large giver, and the other softer...I didn’t hear her voice very much..

So where do I stand about this question, is this the anthem of the lonely, the weak, the survivalists or the realists.

I don’t know, all I know is, my survival came with a year of sharing a bunch of hurt.. I could get it out eventually, to an utter stranger who, no matter what happened, I had surety that my pains and fears would never see light. Yes blame this on my trust issues.

For a girl whose never shared inners with friends, I can never comment on my side of friendship expectations, but I can say, learn to be alone in peace, learn to find your own coping mechanisms outside of friends, social media, obsessions and pain inducers. Understand that at any point, you’re your last hope, your longest relationship, your biggest measure of any love that you can give, and with that, forgive yourself, love yourself first, do the things that heal you and make you happy, that way you keep a cup full.. overflowing, with the ability to fill all the cups around you.. especially when you’re not very much of a sharer. Be light. Be hope. Be kind. Everything else will figure itself out. Promise.

Have a stunner week loves!

Xx