I have slowed down blogging this past year, not because I don't have anything to write or I have been too busy to stop and write, it has been because I was not sure the world was ready to hear what I had to say. I am done hiding my feelings. I want to let go and move forward.
School- It has been a difficult hard ride the past 3 years. I found myself ready for new opportunities and jumped in head first. I found myself trying to solve everyone's problems and save the school. I found myself in the middle of a growing crisis. Us vs. Them mentality. I understood both sides, I had friends on both sides. The first year, it almost broke me mentally and emotionally. I found that I had to stop going to the lunch room. I was tired of listening to both sides complain about everything. change is hard, YES, but it is how we handle it. I spent the next two years, protecting myself from emotionally taking on people's concerns. I hide in my room, I avoided the faculty lunch room. I kept myself busy doing my job as a teacher. I came to accept that I can only invite people to change and not force them to do anything. I stopped saying yes to everything and thinking everything was my fault when it didn't work. I stopped worrying what people thought I was doing or saying or anything. I was not picking sides, I was the middle ground, like it or not. I found that my positivity increased and I was able to manage crisis way better than anything in the past. The sad part is that in the process, I felt I had lost some friends. This year I am starting fresh and so is my school. We don't have the 9th graders anymore, some teachers have moved schools and others took the opportunity to start fresh another school. We have 14 new teachers to the school, (1/3 of the staff). I am excited about the new school year, but also sad that I am missing some great friends/co-workers.
Personal Life- In the same time period of the past 3-4 years. I have bought a new home. I was not planning on this huge life change, but the situations seem to push me in that direction. As I reflected, the previous roommates had bullied me and I had allowed it to occur because I wanted to protect the friendship. Unfortunately, my reaction only made things worse. Hence the strong desire to buy a new house and start fresh. I was allowing everything people emotionally threw at me to affect me. I took everything personally. DARK PLACE! I started to close in and start evaluating my friendships. I noticed that I was a good friend to others, but didn't receive what I needed in return. aka my expectations were different. Those friendships I valued were actually hurting me and feeding my insecurities. I started to noticed that people had been projecting their own insecurities on me. It wasn't me, it was them. LOL! So I started attending a family ward and worked on myself. As I became more self-aware, things got better. I was happier and content with my life choices. I was able to make new friendships and have clear defined boundaries and expectations. The most frustrating thing for me is that those "friends" that weren't honest with me could possibly be justifying their actions because the spirit told them. The spirit guides you through to those choices, but you pick how those choices are played out. The Spirit doesn't tell you to lie or hide the truth. I have been in similar situations before and the outcome was different because my friends were honest with me and we were able to work through the difficulties. Yes, I am still friends with those friends. It actually made our friendship stronger.
Lessons Learned- I have learned that honesty is extremely important to me in my friendships. It is the one thing that seems to hurt me the most. My family has always been honest with each other, sometimes it can be hard to hear, but that is life. True friends are ones who tell you the truth even when it can be difficult. The next difficult thing has been learning how to be Christ-like to those that did lie to you. I think about Joseph Smith, he had close friends that betrayed him. It hurts when it happens to you, but what is the next step?
1. Forgive them-check
2. Avoid them
2. Pretend it didn't happen (although, then they think it was ok to treat you as such)
4. Try to save friendship, but this means you have to talk with them, when they are still in denial they did anything wrong.
5. Move forward with no ill will-working on it
Number 5 is hard because you move forward while still dealing with the hurt. You have to mourn the loss of friendship. You don't get your moment where you freak out at them and tell them how you really feel. You may never receive an apology. You will nice and friendly, but you may be distant mentally and emotionally. This is hard.
Last Thoughts-This is not the first time I have been hurt by my "friends". I am sure some of my friends who have hurt me in the past and present will be reading this. The truth hurts. In reality, they didn't meet my expectations to be my friend. As I move forward, I am trying not to judge those people. (occasionally, those thoughts plagued my mind). They did what they did. Therefore, I am focusing on how I react and move forward.